Solidarity between labor unions and immigrant communities
07:00 Share

Hey there, and thanks for listening. We want to know more about our audience. Stick around at the end of this episode to hear about how you can help provide feedback and have a chance to walk away with a $75 gift card.

Thank you.

Thank you.

with no cost to join, you can register, browse freelancer profiles, and get help drafting a job post or even book a consultation. From there, you connect with freelancers that get you and can easily hire them and take your business to the next level. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to post your job for free and connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Upwork.com.

Changing views of labor unions on immigrant labor. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. First, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on a bill that would formalize some of the White House's spending cuts for money that has already been allocated by Congress. This includes money for public broadcasting. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genza reports.

The bill would claw back more than $9 billion in funding Congress once voted for. It's the first step in the Trump administration's efforts to formalize some of the cuts from DOGE, the cost-cutting commission once headed by Elon Musk.

Since Congress has the power of the purse, only lawmakers can officially take money back. The legislation would claw back two years' worth of federal funding for PBS and public radio stations, totaling about a billion dollars. Most of the cuts would come from foreign aid spending. That reportedly includes money for things like reproductive health and support for LGBTQ communities.

The White House formally sent the request for the funding clawbacks to Congress last week. That started the clock ticking on a 45-day deadline for lawmakers to approve the bill. They only need a simple majority. That avoids a Senate filibuster. If the House okays the measure today, it will go on to the Senate. I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.

Now to labor unions and union members opposing the Trump administration's workplace raids and deportations. One focus has been the arrest of service employees union official David Huerta in Los Angeles at a protest on Friday. He has been charged with a federal felony, allegedly impeding an officer. Another focus of some unions, the mistaken deportation of Kilimar Abrego Garcia, a trades worker apprentice who is now under grand jury indictment.

This kind of solidarity would have been less common a generation ago when some in the labor movement saw undocumented immigrants as low-cost competitors for union jobs, Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports. Two days ago, this was the sound in lower Manhattan. Hi, South New York! Hi!

Alongside immigrant rights groups protesting ICE deportation sweeps was the Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants, a coalition including unions representing teachers, teamsters, service workers and others in New York.

Maeve Campbell is a social worker and organizer for the group. She says the labor committee isn't just marching. United Federation of Teachers, which are public school teachers, they've formed committees in several different schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan and distributed know your rights information to defend students where the bottom line is,

They're not going to take our kids. But it's not all smooth sailing. We've made some efforts in the Labor Committee to get construction workers involved. Well, you know, guess who does construction in New York? I mean, it's undocumented immigrant workers. People are very, very afraid. Immigrants have played a crucial role in the union movement, organizing garment workers in New York, industrial workers in the Midwest, farm workers in California.

But in the post-war period, relations soured, says Haley Brown at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The labor movement, unfortunately, had kind of a fractious relationship with immigration. There were concerns that immigrants were going to erode bargaining power for union members.

Sometimes it got ugly, says UCLA labor historian Toby Higbee. Were there some unions that were calling the INS on undocumented workers, even in the 1970s? That's true, that did happen. But unions began to see that that was a losing strategy. One reason, says Haley Brown, simple demographics.

A higher share of union members are foreign born now. Their share has actually almost doubled, 8.4% in 1994. Today, it is 15.4%.

Which means, says Toby Higbee, Given that so many working people are either immigrants, the children of immigrants, or live in mixed status families or communities, it is in the interest of both the immigrant rights movement and the labor movement to collaborate.

In Chicago, factory worker Maribel Martinez says a union drive at her workplace is pressing for better pay and safer working conditions. The group organizing the workers is also educating them about their rights as immigrants. Well, in general, we are not afraid of immigration coming to our work.

Martinez says most of her fellow employees have permission to work in the U.S., and they're more worried about having their rights as workers violated than they are of immigration raids. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. President Trump said last night the U.S. is preparing to send out take-it-or-leave-it letters to countries around the world imposing levels for U.S. tariffs. Negotiations with U.S. trade partners are ongoing.

Invest Puerto Rico supports this Marketplace podcast. What's next in innovation? That's not the right question. It's where? Puerto Rico. More than just a tropical paradise, it's innovation's paradise, where startups and global players coexist in a vast and vibrant ecosystem, where talent runs deep, highly skilled, and bilingual. Plus, the island offers the most competitive tax incentives in the U.S. If you believe your business can go anywhere, Puerto Rico is the place.

Find out more at investpr.org slash podcast.

The Jeep brand has always stood for American freedom. And now we're standing with you with Employee Pricing Plus. Hurry into your Jeep brand dealer for details today and join the family. Jeep, there's only one. Offer valid on select 2024 and 2025 Jeep brand vehicles for non-FCA employees and retirees. $200 admin fee applies. Not all buyers will qualify. Restrictions apply. Does not apply to leases. End 6-30-25. Jeep is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC.

The United Nations says there are nearly 138 million children working worldwide. The UN Children's Fund and the International Labor Organization worked together on a report out today which shows some progress on this, despite a missed deadline to end the employment of children in the workplace globally. Here's the BBC's Max Horbury.

More than one in every 12 children works. This represents, the United Nations say, an improvement. But it still means that 138 million children aged between 5 and 17 work, equivalent almost to the entire population of Russia.

Nearly 40% of those children have been risking their health, working in mines, factories or fields. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of child labourers, while most progress has been made in the Asia-Pacific region. There had been an aim to bring the global number down to zero by 2025, but at the current rate it will take hundreds of years before the world is free of child labour.

Max Horbury is with our partners at the BBC. And the Wall Street Journal has a story today on companies seeing Latino consumers pulling back shopping amid the Trump administration's deportation campaign. Consumer goods, food, beverage companies and restaurants are seeing a pullback in buying, which already showed up in first quarter sales calculations. The report puts spending power by Hispanic consumers at $2.1 trillion.

In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio. You're listening to the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media. Hi, I'm Adam Grant, host of the podcast Rethinking, a show where I talk to some of today's greatest thinkers about the unconventional ways they see the world. On Rethinking, you'll get surprising insights from scientists, leaders, artists, and more. People like Reese Witherspoon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Yo-Yo Ma. Hear lessons to help you find success at work, build better relationships, and more.

Find Rethinking wherever you get your podcasts.