The American working class has been shaped over its history by the arrival and adjustment of group after group of immigrants. The availability of immigrants -- perceived as a source of cheap, easily controlled labor -- has figured prominently in American management theory and practice.

For 150 years, employers have mixed workers on the job so as to discourage communication. They have also instigated ethnic and racial hostilities, playing one group against another.

But ethnic diversity has not simply been a tool in employers’ hands. At times, it has also worked to the advantage of the labor movement. Many ethnic cultures have included traditions of social and political struggle and even labor organization itself. Among our greatest labor leaders have been immigrants themselves. The collectivist traditions of ethnic cultures have supported union organization, while fraternal orders and churches have assisted organizing campaigns and strikes.

Reaching out to immigrants
The new leadership of the AFL-CIO seems to understand this history and they have put new resources and commitment into reaching out to immigrants. They have recruited new immigrant organizers and have begun to build grassroots organizations among immigrant workers. At the center of these efforts lies APALA -- the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance. APALA includes immigrant labor activists from many unions on its national executive board, and it is encouraging the organization of local chapters. These chapters provide a place for activists to share experiences, to seek the support of local unions and to plan educational and organizing projects aimed at Asian immigrant workers.

There is an active APALA chapter here in the Twin Cities, which includes white and Latino supporters as well as Asian activists. Participants include members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Union of Electronic Workers, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Teachers. The APALA chapter is bringing a union message into the Asian immigrant communities and it is also gaining energy from their own histories and traditions of struggling for social justice. While much of this history has come with them from their home countries, some of it has been written here.

In 1989-1990, 12 Hmong immigrant workers were among the 28 members of IUE Local 1140 who conducted an eight-month strike against Quality Tool, Inc., on St. Paul’s Energy Park Drive. They stood solid with their white fellow workers, gained support from the Hmong community and discouraged the recruitment of Hmong strikebreakers.

The Hmong are an increasingly visible presence in the St. Paul community, from their vegetable stands in the Farmers Market to their recreated villages at the Festival of Nations. The challenges of adjusting to a new society -- older men and women with no written language let alone a familiarity with English, younger people who wonder what their futures will be -- have become concerns of the entire community.

Return to top

New leadership from Hmong
Like dozens of other groups who have come before them, most Hmong enter American society as workers. The Quality Tool strike demonstrated not only that Hmong will join the labor movement, but that they have gifts and strengths of their own to bring to the movement.

In the mid-1980s, the ownership of Quality Tool changed hands. The new owner came to the workers and asked them to take wage and benefit cuts -- all too common a pattern in that period. Although this left them $2 an hour behind other local shops, they agreed. About a year and a half later, the new owner hired his first Hmong worker. Over the next year, more than a dozen were hired. All were young men, though most already had families. While some could still speak no English, others were vo-tech grads and one had even attended the University of Minnesota for two years. The union suspected something was afoot.

Union members made a special effort to reach the new Hmong workers. The shop steward and the IUE business agent both spent time with them. As the business agent, himself the son of Polish immigrants, explained: "The more I got to know these people, the more I realized they were like my parents." When the company short-changed the Hmong on six-month wage progressions, the union filed grievances and stood up for them.

Trying to divide the workers
When the contract expired on Sept. 30, 1989, Quality Tool’s offer tried to divide the workers along racial lines -- raises and freezes for most of the whites; wage cuts averaging $1.49 an hour for most of the Hmong. White and Hmong alike rejected this proposal and went on strike.

"Having a union is all of us brothers," explained one Hmong striker. Within two days, Quality Tool had begun to hire "permanent replacements." By mid-November, all 28 strikers were informed that they had been replaced. Not one replacement is a Hmong.

Quality Tool also sought -- and received -- support from the courts and the police. Injunctions limited the number of pickets, where they could stand, what they could do, what they could say. Police patrols with K-9 support broke up several protests. Strikers were arrested for "harassing" scabs.

Attending the vo-tech, wrestling with generational conflict, youth alienation and police brutality, joining unions and going on strike -- the Hmong’s painful but inevitable adaptation to working class life in America is well underway. The renewed efforts of the AFL-CIO, APALA and local unions can help assure that this adaptation leads in the direction of the labor movement.

Peter Rachleff is a labor historian at Macalester College.

Related articles
Union Advocate history series main page

Return to top