LOS ANGELES and SEATTLE—Unite HERE locals, whose members, most of them workers of color and almost all among the nation’s most-exploited employees, in hotels, restaurants, and stadiums, are using the pending World Cup soccer games in the U.S. as leverage to ban Donald Trump’s vicious and violent ICE agents from host cities, to take strike authorization votes, or both.
And their parent international union is warning travelers to those soccer games that there may be picket lines and labor disputes at those facilities and at airports, too.
“The World Cup should be a major economic opportunity for the hospitality industry, and a chance to recover some from decreased tourism numbers and lower-than-projected demand for hotel rooms, restaurant reservations, and the like caused by disastrous Trump immigration policies,” said Unite HERE President Gwen Mills.
“Unite HERE members are prepared to give a warm welcome to fans to their cities, but may not be able to do so if they are still struggling for good contracts that ensure good wages and benefits.”
Or if the workers are scared away by Trump’s ICE agents and cooperating local cops.
Mills explained heavy police and ICE agent presence outside stadiums, hotels, and restaurants “may discourage attendees and/or intimidate workers as they try to do their jobs.”
“Many Unite HERE members are immigrants, including those who will be working at…stadiums, hotels, and airports during the World Cup. They experience the effects of anti-immigrant policy and rhetoric every day. They don’t need the added stress of tracking ICE agents at their workplaces,” said Enrique Fernández, the union’s vice president for immigration, civil rights, and diversity.
“That’s one reason we joined the AFL-CIO in calling on FIFA leadership to keep ICE out of World Cup host cities.” The federation had sent that demand to FIFA in mid-May.
The first U.S. World Cup game is scheduled to kick off on June 12 at Sofi Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, Calif. Unite HERE Local 11, which represents hotel, restaurant, and arena workers in Los Angeles and Orange County, plans a strike authorization vote June 4-5.
The 2,000 Sofi Stadium workers are bargaining for a new contract, but that’s not even the main issue in the L.A. area. ICE is. L.A. was the first city where Trump sent the ICE agents in their massive sweeps. Workers were beaten up, dragged out of their cars, arrested, detained, and deported.
Observers, including news reporters, were shot with rubber bullets or gassed. David Huerta, the Service Employees’ California president, was handcuffed, thrown to the ground against a curb, and suffered a concussion.
Huerta was hospitalized under ICE guard, then briefly jailed. He now faces misdemeanor charges of obstructing law enforcement officers, though the ICE agents were masked and unidentified. The ICE agents who injured him have gone free.
ICE’s presence in L.A. during the World Cup also upsets Local 11 member Yolanda Fierro, who works at the stadium.
“We have been very clear: We want ICE OUT of the World Cup and for them to play NO ROLE during the games,” Fierro told the union. “We are seriously concerned FIFA will hand over our most sensitive personal information and waive our rights under California law, or that we could lose our jobs working the World Cup.
“We will not give FIFA the opportunity to share our data with any third party, including ICE and foreign countries’ intelligence agencies.” Unfortunately, according to the AFL-CIO, that’s what FIFA has already done.
“We cannot celebrate the World Cup while workers, tourists, immigrant families, and local communities are made to feel unsafe. Los Angeles should be a city of welcome, not fear,” said Fierro.
Huerta’s arrest, along with violent arrests in D.C., also a World Cup site, and Chicago, which isn’t, prompted the AFL-CIO to demand that FIFA, the international organization that runs the tournament, pressure the Trump regime to keep ICE out of World Cup sites. FIFA, whose president, Gianni Infantino, awarded Trump a fake “peace prize” earlier this year, hasn’t replied.
But FIFA has turned over employee records, including names, addresses, and other contact info, to ICE. That endangers workers in L.A., which is 45% Latino, in particular, given ICE’s racial profiling in its arrests, sweeps, and deportations.
Members of Seattle’s Local 8 seek a new contract with Hilton’s Embassy Suites at downtown Pioneer Square. The hotel is right next to the stadium, which will host the June 15 match, ten days after the scheduled June 5 strike authorization vote. Their contract, which expired May 31, covers 113 workers.
Key issues in Seattle are better wages, year-round health care coverage, and a return to pre-pandemic staffing levels. The union also demands that ICE stay out of Seattle, too.
Unite HERE also reported members of Local 274 in Philadelphia plan to strike multiple center city hotels there if they don’t reach a new contract with the hostelries by the scheduled June 14 World Cup game there. They vow to go on strike all the way through the Fourth of July if necessary. That would really upset Trump, since he’s making a big deal out of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
And Unite HERE listed Houston as another possible union protest site, noting its proximity to Mexico. The catch: Trump’s ICE sweeps have prompted many Mexican soccer fans who planned to travel to the World Cup games in Houston and Arlington, Texas, to cancel. International tourism is down significantly, local organizations report.
Other U.S. World Cup host stadiums and cities include Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, East Rutherford, N.J. (Metro New York), and D.C. residents, if not its mayor, corporate Democrat Muriel Bowser, consider ICE an “occupying army,” Latino, voting rights, and civil rights groups say. Mexican World Cup sites are Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, while Canadian host cities include Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto.
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