Local context and labour-community immigrant rights coalitions: a comparison of San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston

Abstract

The historic immigrant mobilisations of 2006 have reinvigorated public debates about immigration in the United States and the role of the labour movement in advancing immigrant rights. Prior research has highlighted why the U.S. labour movement officially declared solidarity with immigrant workers in 2000, but how has this new commitment played out on the ground? Drawing on rich qualitative data on immigrant-focused coalition building in San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston since the early 2000s, we show that local labour unions in all three cities have collaborated with a range of organisations to improve immigrant and worker rights. Rather than one coherent strategy, however, we find variation in the form, depth, and function of these partnerships across cities. This suggests that differences in local context pose distinct opportunities and challenges for immigrant-focused labour-community immigrant rights coalitions, and our analysis focuses on differences in demographic, political, and civic context across place. We argue that beyond an analysis of the U.S. labour movement, a multi-sectoral and comparative local approach is important to gain a fuller understanding of unions’ engagement with immigrant rights.