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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| May 29, 2004 |
Jobs with Justic – Jonathan Harris |
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| Jonathan Harris |
Protecting and campaigning for the rights of immigrant workers in South Florida, Jonathan Harris, director of "Jobs with Justice," dispels the glamorous image of Miami as a sun kissed playground for the rich, describing it as a city "struggling in poverty." Officially the poorest big city in the US, it is also home to both the most affluent and impoverished neighbourhoods in the country, and lays claim to one of the largest economic gaps between the rich and poor - 10% of the population control 90% of the wealth.
Although affluent Cuban-Americans run the city, most immigrants are undocumented workers forced to live in the shadows of society, without any rights to healthcare, further education, or a minimum wage. Over 60% of Miami is made up of foreign-born Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Columbians, Jamaicans, Venezuelans, and Argentineans, mostly living in deprived, segregated communities spread out over the city. Because immigrant workers are not members of unions, "they are easily exploited by employers," says Jonathan, battling with Jobs with Justice alongside coalitions of labour, religious and constituency organisations for workplace equality.
Jobs with Justice was founded to oppose the "brutal corporate agendas" that set out to "impoverish workers, bust unions, dismantle affirmative action and attack immigrant workers." When Haitian nurses were accused of using voodoo to get workers to vote for a union, Jobs with Justice, in conjunction with local community leaders, lobbied the hospital administration to ensure that they won the union contract - an important part of the campaign's mission is to educate workers on the labour movement and uphold their rights to oppose on-the-job discrimination. |
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| Jonathan facilitating a workshop on labour rights and campaign organizing |
Laws that favour certain ethnic groups over others are also to blame for immigrant mistreatment. If a Cuban manages to physically touch US soil they are automatically granted political asylum, while Haitians fleeing their homeland in search of freedom are immediately detained. Jobs with Justice has been active in the struggle to free Haitian refugees held by the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) for over a year, including women and children imprisoned in hotel rooms by armed security guards.
In a role-play exercise to emphasise the unequal treatment of immigrants from different countries, Jonathan gave out character profiles of patients seeking emergency treatment at a hospital. An undocumented Honduran builder, a Haitian working mother with three children and legal visa status, as well as a rich white American with health insurance, all needed immediate care. Based on reality, the scenario outcome was that the Honduran builder had no legal documents and not enough money to afford the huge medical costs, while the Haitian mother could not get treatment for her children because they were not legal citizens, even though she was. The only one who could receive attention was the wealthy American with healthcare - despite all of them working and paying taxes.
The "healthcare crisis" in the US affects around 40 million people without health insurance - most of whom are immigrants. A positive spin on this negative figure, says Jonathan, is that this is one reason "different ethnic groups are joining together to take action." Traditionally, immigrant communities have been divided in their battles for rights, and only concerned with issues that directly relate to them. When immigrants from all over the US united to travel to New York and lobby for a "path to citizenship," it was also the first time they had worked with the unions and the healthcare movement, bringing solidarity and more resources to a shared struggle for equality.
Thanks to this kind of joint action, along with organizing support from community groups and NGOs such as Jobs with Justice, immigrants are fighting for and winning worker's rights. Though this is definite progress, many of the solutions put forward by the government are only short term, and lobbying to ensure that the SOLVE (Safe, Orderly, Legal, Visas and Enforcement) act is passed in congress is an ongoing campaign. The legislation, created in consultation with leading immigrant groups, would legalize hard working people, reunite family members across borders and regulate the flow of legal immigration and strengthen worker protections by safeguarding employee rights. Vital steps towards realising that "immigrants are here to stay in the US," and that Americans need to begin "dealing with the issues."
For more information on the work of Jonathan Harris and the South Florida Jobs with Justice group visit – http://www.sfjwj.org/
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