Local unions mostly stayed out of the immigrant rights protests that followed the raid at Fresh Del Monte Produce, though Oregon’s top labor official issued a statement, and the union-backed worker solidarity group Jobs With Justice joined in several protests.

“It’s wrong that our nation’s immigration laws are more punitive toward the men and women who are working to support their families than on the corporations that exploit them,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain in a press statement. Chamberlain called for Fresh Del Monte to be brought to justice.

Most of the arrested Del Monte workers face deportation proceedings, and 10 were indicted by a federal grand jury June 27 for Social Security fraud and possessing fraudulent immigration documents. But Del Monte is not a current target of the investigation. The company, owned by several Arab investors (its CEO is Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh) and incorporated in the Cayman Islands, employed illegal immigrant workers at its facilities, but did so through its human resources contractor, American Staffing Resources, Inc.

“Fresh Del Monte does not employ this labor force,” Del Monte said in a press statement. The ICE investigators agreed.

The Teamsters are familiar with such sham arrangements, said Local 206 Secretary-Treasurer Tom Leedham. Local 206 organized the same group of workers three times at DHL in Eugene and each time DHL hired a new subcontractor, forcing the union to start a new campaign from scratch. The National Labor Relations Board was no help, judging the “employer” to be the staffing agencies, not the company whose name and logo were on the trucks.

So while Teamsters are a big presence in food processing, the Del Monte plant remained nonunion even as workers faced terrible pay and working conditions — exposed in a May 2 cover story in the Willamette Week newspaper. Leedham thinks he knows why.

“As a practical matter, it’s impossible to organize large groups of undocumented workers,” Leedham said, “because the companies use fear tactics, like the fear of a raid.”

“It’s difficult enough for folks with legal status to unionize,” adds Laborers Union organizer Ben Nelson. “Things like the Del Monte raid push people more and more into the shadows.”

In the weeks that followed the raid, Nelson was one of those protesting.

“We find it reprehensible that working folks are being put in that position,” Nelson said. “From the top on down, our union has taken the position that wherever you’re from and however you got here, we want to help you organize.”

Nelson said a huge portion of the construction industry, especially laborers, are now immigrant workers, and the Laborers want to organize them.

That policy causes quite a bit of tension in local union meetings, Nelson said.

“Folks are concerned about the amount of work available, and are bothered by laws being broken. But we need to unite all working people who are doing the work,” Nelson said.

“And we have to look at what’s causing people to travel long distances to do the work. The union’s fundamental mission is to defend working people wherever they may be.”

The Laborers was one of a handful of labor organizations participating in the debate in Washington, D.C., over a change to the nation’s immigration laws.

President Bush and leaders of the U.S. Senate thought they had a winning compromise — increase border enforcement, crack down on companies that employ illegal immigrants, start up a new guest worker program and give illegal immigrants who are now in the United States a way to legalize after paying fines and returning to their home countries in some cases.

But that compromise unraveled June 28 when the bill’s backers couldn’t get enough votes. Voting for the bill were Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Washington Democrats Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Oregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith voted against it.

Unions were calling for comprehensive immigration reform, but most opposed the compromise bill. At a June 20 press conference, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the bill catered to the interests of employers at the expense of immigrant and U.S.-born workers.

Ed Sullivan, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, said the bill’s penalties on employers who violate the law were too weak, and the guest worker provisions would help employers drive down wages and benefits in the construction industry.

Sweeney and Sullivan were joined at the press conference by Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, which is a member of the Change to Win labor federation. UFCW also opposed the bill, as did the Laborers, also part of Change to Win.

“Undocumented workers who have established themselves should be able to earn legal status and citizenship if they work, pay taxes, learn English, undergo background checks and pay a fine,” said Laborers President Terence O’Sullivan in a letter to senators. The compromise bill did that, but also required some immigrants to return to their home countries before applying for permanent residency status. That and other provisions made the bill too onerous to be effective, O’Sullivan said.

Alone among the national unions — the Service Employees and United Farm Workers backed the bill, saying it was an imperfect solution, but that the status quo is worse. Those two unions, along with UNITE HERE, which represents hotel, restaurant, laundry and textile workers, belong to the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which supports the idea of a guest worker program as long as the workers don’t have substandard rights while they’re in the United States.