A few years ago, SEIU boss Eliseo Medina made some off-hand remarks about turning millions of the nation’s illegal immigrants into progressive voters. Medina’s remarks sent shockwaves around the Right blogosphere.

Though it is widely known that unions like the SEIU and the UFCW already represent and take dues from illegal immigrants, the plan to legalize and then unionize the millions of immigrants who are currently here in the U.S. illegally has never really been officially adopted as–you know–an official AFL-CIO resolution…until now.

At the AFL-CIO’s convention in Los Angeles last week, AFL-CIO delegates passed Resolution 4 which states that the AFL-CIO will work to pass so-called immigration reform and, more importantly, deploy its resources to unionize immigrants.

Of course, union bosses’ agenda doesn’t just stop with unionizing immigrants. As Eliseo Medina remarked a few years ago, the AFL-CIO plans to “mount citizenship, voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts that will change the political environment for labor and enhance workers’ ability to organize.”

Here is the pertinent section of Resolution 4 [with emphasis added]:

The federation, its state, area and local bodies and its affiliates are working and will continue to work side by side with immigrant workers, their families, our allies and community partners to pass comprehensive immigration reform consistent with that framework and to implement its provisions. We will continue to play a leading role in the movement for reform that is backed by the majority of the public. Our strategy shall take into consideration the labor markets in which these aspiring citizens are likely to be employed and the needs of workers in those labor markets, as well as the social and educational needs of aspiring citizens and their families, including affordable health care. We will identify new opportunities for aspiring citizens to participate in the political process in partnership with unions and to exercise their workplace rights.

Specifically, the AFL-CIO will promote organizing of immigrant workers who seek to have union representation at their workplace. Through the Organizing Institute, the AFL-CIO will work with affiliate unions to recruit and train organizers from the immigrant community and organizers with the necessary language skills to assist workers in communities with many monolingual workers. The AFL-CIO will coordinate its training and outreach initiatives with affiliates, focusing on areas and industries in which affiliates are actively organizing.

Further, the AFL-CIO will partner with allies to provide citizenship and workers’ rights instruction and general assistance with processing applications for work authorization and naturalization. The AFL-CIO will open up its state federation and central labor council halls and urge affiliate unions and their locals to open their halls for citizenship and workers’ rights classes in partnership with allies or, where appropriate, as a labor movement initiative. The AFL-CIO will work with Union Privilege to assist with outreach to the immigrant community and engage in other experimental initiatives, including providing low-interest loans for application and processing fees. Finally, the AFL-CIO will identify key states and mount citizenship, voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts that will change the political environment for labor and enhance workers’ ability to organize.

While immigrant reform may be stymied until 2017 due to Syria, union bosses cannot afford to let it fail again.

However, with the AFL-CIO now formally admitting what many have already known–that the goal is to legalize, unionize, then turn immigrants into ‘progressive voters’–one must wonder why any Republicans would support a bill that will lead to their own demise.
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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

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Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com

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