Trade unions have a long and difficult history (pdf) with immigration. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants were used as replacement workers, and companies that didn’t want unions organizing their workers sometimes employed immigrants from disparate groups who spoke different languages or merely distrusted one another, making it difficult for them to band together. As is the case today, new immigrants usually worked for less money than people who had been in the United States longer.

In the early 20th century, labor groups like the AFL-CIO actively opposed immigration and pushed successfully for measures that would limit it, especially when it came to “non-white” immigrants like Eastern Europeans and Chinese. For several decades, when immigration was restricted, unions flourished without having to consider immigration very much.

Today, with millions of illegal immigrants in the country and union membership at an ebb, unions have to confront the issue once again. This time, however, they are taking a completely different approach.

Eddie Acosta is the National Worker Center Coordinator for the AFL-CIO. He works with immigrant worker centers, many organized for day laborers, to ensure that immigrants are informed of their rights and that they are not being exploited. Acosta supports worker centers’ lawsuits, works on immigration legislation, and spreads good will by traveling to the 175 worker centers around the country.

“The role of the AFL-CIO is to assist local unions and local worker centers to form relationships,” Acosta explained. While some union members feel immigrants are taking their jobs, he said, the AFL-CIO feels that working with immigrants and recruiting them into unions when possible helps the entire workforce, legal and illegal, to avoid exploitation. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO is lobbying against the proposed guest worker program (pdf), because, Acosta said, it would lead to an underclass of exploited workers. It also opposes employer sanctions and supports amnesty for currently undocumented immigrants.

I have talked to people from the labor movement, but what do immigrants themselves think about this? Do unions ever take unfair advantage of immigrants, forcing them to join against their will or without their understanding? Acosta said that unions are supposed to provide information in Spanish, but that they often don’t.

Are there unions that do not admit undocumented workers? Do employers retaliate against undocumented workers who organize? What about other unions and labor groups? To what extent do immigrants play a role in whether unions support a particular candidate?

I’d like to cover this issue in more depth, so please post comments with insights or questions.