A Search for Unity: Rudy Lozano and Coalition Building in Chicago

With or Without Documents

We are the workers. We have rights. We create the wealth, with or without documents. 
Statement from a 1979 CASA retreat 

 

Many Mexican American and Mexican immigrant workers worked in low-paying, dangerous, unskilled jobs with little possibility for advancement. For most of the 20th century, unions ignored or excluded them. Undocumented workers were portrayed as difficult to organize and blamed for lowering wages and acting as strikebreakers. 

In 1979, Rudy Lozano became an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), Local 336. He worked to build solidarity among ALL workers, including undocumented workers who were especially vulnerable to exploitation by business owners. Lozano encouraged individual workers to join the union and educated them about their rights. He supported workers by acting as an interpreter, visiting them in their homes or local restaurants, and escorting them to immigration court appearances.  

In 1982, workers at Chicago’s largest tortilla manufacturer, Del Rey Tortillas, asked Lozano to help them form a union. The company responded with threats to workers, firings, and intimidation. Several weeks before the election to form a union, the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided the largest of the Del Rey plants. The workers believed the company was behind the raid. After employees voted to form a union, Del Rey refused to acknowledge the vote, claiming Lozano had interfered with the election. The case was brought to the National Labor Relations Board and workers and the community organized a boycott of Del Rey tortillas. Although the union was not recognized until after Lozano’s death, the effort united the community in a common search for workplace justice.
 

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