National AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Ray Waldron and other labor leaders joined immigrant workers Monday in calling for reform of the nation's immigration laws.

"The system is failing," Trumka said at a news conference held outside the Radisson Riverfront Hotel in St. Paul, where the Minnesota AFL-CIO is holding its annual convention. It "targets workers instead of the egregious employers who exploit them and it needs to be fixed!"

Trumka and other labor leaders listened as workers from Somalia, Ethiopia and Mexico described the obstacles they face when seeking to legally remain in the United States. Lucia Viglio, a refugee from Ethiopia, has applied for years to bring family members to the U.S., but has been turned down twice by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"I don't know if they are alive or dead," she said of her family, who face political repression in her homeland.

Change is needed
Trumka said Viglio and others like her deserve the opportunity to have permanent legal status."They are contributing to this economy. They're fueling this economy. They're paying taxes."

Jaye Rykunyk, principal officer of Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 17, said hotels and restaurants could not operate without immigrant workers. "The foundation of our industry is based on their labor," she said.

Yet these workers often face discrimination and mistreatment on the job - and that must change, said Amy Bodnar, director of the Service Employees International Union State Council, which represents many nursing home workers. "The existence of a pool of workers without basic right makes it easier for employers to play one group off against another and deny fair treatment to all workers," she said.

Bodnar said a new poll indicates that "a broad concensus is building for legalization" and it is time for change.

Specifically, the labor movement supports the following reforms, Trumka said: