No-Match Strategy Workshop

Equal Justice Center Convenes Broad Coalition in Mississippi
for Strategy Conference Addressing Social Security No-Match Crisis

In the late summer of 2003, there was a series of firings and threatened firings aimed at immigrant workers in the poultry processing plants of South Central Mississippi and resulting from company’s misuse of Social Security no-match letters. (See news articles). On September 17, 2003, the Equal Justice Center convened a rapid response conference in Jackson that brought together labor organizations, religious and civil rights advocates, and other community-based groups to address the crisis. This highly successful conference devised collaborative strategies for protecting workers against improper terminations, while strengthening working relationships between community-based groups and labor organizations and increasing their ability to organize workers across lines of race, nationality, and immigration status.

During the summer of 2003, the confusion and uncertainty surrounding these no-match letters and the critical impact that employers’ actions had on immigrant workers, families and communities, made it vital that the advocates working with these communities should convene immediately to learn more about these Social Security no-match letters and to develop joint strategies that advocates and labor organizers can use to prevent the threat of mass terminations of immigrant workers as employers receive no-match letters in the future. Participants were also eager to explore the organizing potential of collaborative action on this issue for forging greater solidarity between immigrant and non-immigrant workers..
In some instances an employer’s erroneous response has resulted in the firing of hundreds of immigrant workers with terrible consequences for their families and the entire immigrant community. In other cases quick action by the workers’ union and organized community groups has prevented any terminations and has simultaneously proven to be a good organizing tool. The best protections that these immigrant workers have are their labor unions—in the few cases where there is a collective bargaining agreement—and strong community organizations willing to advocate on their behalf when employers try to fire them. However, due to the newness of Latin American immigration in the predominantly rural towns of Mississippi where the poultry industry thrives, and due to advocates’ relative isolation from the legal and organizing resources that exist in large metropolitan areas, both union and community-based advocates are scrambling to react to a string of crises without a clear understanding of exactly what the workers’ rights are and without the proper tools or collaborative support networks to make their efforts effective.

More than 50 individuals attended the September conference. Among the groups represented were: six community-based civil rights and immigrant rights organizations, four union locals, regional and national union representatives, members of over ten different faith communities, and six national advocacy organizations.

The combination of expert presentations with large and small group discussions was highly successful in sharing and deepening the participants’ collective knowledge. In the morning session Mississippi advocates were given overviews of Latin American poultry workers in Mississippi, basic concepts of immigration and employment law, and what the SSA No-Match letter is. These presentations were followed by more in-depth discussions. Ana Avendaño of the National Immigration Law Center, Renee Bowser of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Charles Carney of the Laborers Union led a discussion of the tools that labor unions have for protecting workers whose names appear on the No-Match letter. José Oliva, director of the Chicago Interfaith Workers’ Rights Center, followed with a presentation on responses from community-based advocates, and Joe Berra, immigration attorney at the Mexican American Legal and Educational Defense Fund, closed the morning session with a discussion of the threat of immigration enforcement by local and federal law enforcement authorities.

Moreover advocates at the conference demonstrated their commitment to work together to address the immediate challenge posed by the no-match crises and to pursue ongoing long-term collaborations. During the afternoon session, Mississippi advocates developed a list of seven action items they would implement in response to the SSA No-Match crisis and to strengthen their collaborative efforts to reach out to immigrant workers and forge greater solidarity with non-immigrant workers. Several organizations and individuals present made specific commitments of resources they would contribute or duties they would take on to ensure that this follow-up happens. These included the Equal Justice Center’s commitment to lead the education campaigns for workers, unions and employers in advance of the 2004 no-match letters as well as to continue its work toward establishing a permanent poultry workers’ center in Mississippi.