Last month, the "March for Amnesty" drew thousands of demonstrators. Crowd estimates ranged from 2,000 to 13,000; but almost any North Texas observer would agree that it was the largest public demonstration in North Texas history!

More actions are being planned and new areas of cooperation are being explored.

There are an estimated one million undocumented workers among the 15-20 million people living in North Texas. About 90 percent of the undocumented are Mexican workers. Others are from Central America. There are also large numbers of legal immigrants, including many Vietnamese and Cuban people.

Every year for the past five years, service-oriented agencies and immigrant groups organized large street demonstrations for amnesty. Many groups and activists from the various church and community groups involved with immigrant rights to the local Jobs with Justice chapter tried to pull together a coalition for political change and amnesty. Many felt that union, service agency and immigrant group cooperation was not even possible. But that was before February 2000.

In late February, the executive board of the national AFL-CIO made a historic decision. They endorsed amnesty for undocumented workers. Very quickly afterward, the AFL-CIO joined with immigrant rights organizations to form the Coalition for Dignity and Amnesty. They led a march in Washington, D.C. and called for statewide marches across the nation on May 1, the international workers’ holiday.

Dallas was chosen for the Texas march site. Dallas has some significant history in the struggle for immigrant rights.

During Reagan’s war against Central America, social service groups such as Catholic Charities were drawn into the broad anti-war coalitions. One result of the high levels of political activity was the spinning off of organizations committed to gaining legal status for the many political refugees from Central America.

Even after the anti-war movement faded, those agencies were able to continue, though somewhat less political and more service-oriented. Some activists retained their commitment to organizing political refugees and their supporters for political change. Activist immigrants, for their part, kept their groups together. Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and several Mexican groups in Dallas, for example, maintained separate groups that were linked together through a network.

With the AFL-CIO’s amnesty drive there is more cooperation and coalition building among local organizations, Central Labor Council and activists. The historic April 30 march was just one of a series of coalition events at the end of April. On April 28, groups cooperated on the first Workers Memorial Day ever hosted by the Dallas AFL-CIO. Immigrant workers are even more interested in workplace safety than unionized workers, because they tend to get hurt more and get less help and compensation. Two days later, an appreciation dinner for the many newspersons that had helped with the demonstration drew about 150 people.

Signs of coalition politics can be seen elsewhere. In their contingent in the annual Cinco de Mayo parade the Center for Human Rights carried a "Dallas AFL-CIO" banner. Local Dallas immigrant rights activists and leaders went to Washington D.C. to lobby for amnesty. They were invited by the AFL-CIO to the informational forums on amnesty being conducted around the country. The AFL-CIO is in the process of conducting hearings across the country to explore the issue of immigrants’ rights. The results of the hearings will be published. It is hoped that the results of these hearings will further unify the immigrant/labor coalition forming.

Local coalition building has spilled over into the elections. As soon as they came back from D.C., the Dallas leaders offered to join the AFL-CIO in its campaign to defeat right-wing Republican Pete Sessions in the 5th Congressional District.

The most important accomplishment is the building of the labor-community coalition. The process is very fluid and can be delicate. Everybody, on both sides, has to learn how to put this unique coalition together. We have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of both sides while we explore common opportunities.

Immigrant groups agree on the demand for a new general amnesty. Many of organized labor’s traditional demands such as job safety, better wages, dignity on the job, and the right to organize are shared and even magnified by immigrant workers.

Immigrants reel from emergency to emergency, and live in danger of incredible exploitation, unsafe working conditions, and deportation as a consequence of the slightest protest.

There has been a tremendous amount of the work done, yet there still needs to be unity building to show the necessity of organizing all workers – immigrants and native-born. In some ways, the biggest challenge is for all of labor to see their self-interest in this fight.

The existing labor/community coalition must be broadened to include immigrants of all nationalities and also involve some of the more traditional civil rights groups.

That’s the only way we can win amnesty and any progressive change for all workers.

Susan Stein and Jim Lane are trade union activists in Dallas.