Unions talk future of labor at Lynn conference

LYNN – Labor movements on the North Shore, and across the country, must involve immigrants if they want to make it out of one of the lowest periods of membership in the 20th and 21st centuries, said leaders at an annual labor conference in Lynn this weekend.”Immigrants are now the future of our movement,” said Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman. “We have to open our arms and make sure they’re invited.”Tolman made introductory remarks at the North Shore Labor Council Educational Conference, an annual event held Saturday at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute. The day-long conference drew about 50 to 60 people involved in various unions from Lynn to New Hampshire, who listened to bilingual panels about union organizing, labor in politics, the history of unions in Lynn and, of course, immigration reform.Less interest in unions, stronger corporations and a recession means just about every sector of the economy with organized labor is declining in membership, said Jeff Crosby, the president of the North Shore Labor Council.”There’s nowhere to hide,” he said. “It feels like our economy is set up to find the last poor son of a gun with a pension and take it from him.”But Crosby said there’s a silver lining to labor’s struggles?conferences like Saturday’s help leaders come up with more creative ways to keep the movement going.And Lynn, a city where labor has had a history of uniting diverse communities, is the perfect place to do that, he said.”Lynn’s labor movement and Lynn in particular has always been a center of the inclusive wing of the labor movement,” he said, referencing the city’s shoe-factory strike in the 1860s, which he said united Irish and Italians and women and men to demand better wages.Today, that spirit of integration takes on the form of bringing together Lynn’s disparate Latino community, said Raysa Alvarez, the leadership development coordinator for Lynn’s Worker Center for Economic Justice. The center is set up with NSLC to connect with immigrants in Greater Lynn.Alvarez said it’s been a struggle to convince Latinos they can collectively bargain for workplace rights: Language barriers and fear of retribution for those who are undocumented play a major factor, she said.”They’re too nervous, too afraid and they often think they don’t have any rights,” she said.But Augustina Matos, a volunteer helping Alvarez organize Lynn’s Latinos, said organization must happen for the city’s immigrant community to advance.”The Latino population is growing, and growing practically unprotected,” she said.And if immigrants join the North Shore’s historic labor movement, unions will live another day to fight, Tolman said.”If we work together, there’s no stopping us,” he said.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].