Birmingham News: A union that represents a number of immigrants filed a complaint Monday with the United Nations aimed at Alabama's immigration law.
The Service Employees International Union filed the complaint regarding the Alabama law -- commonly called HB 56 -- with the UN's International Labour Organization Committee on Freedom of Association.
The ILO is an agency of the UN that promotes the rights of laborers.
"From a trade union perspective, HB 56 is emblematic of the U.S. government's failure to respect its obligations to protect and defend the right to form and join trade unions, and to bargain collectively," the complaint stated.
SEIU has 1,105 members in Alabama and more than 2.1 million members nationwide. The union claims on its website that it represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United States.
"We believe that the U.S. government's inability to act promptly and decisively to put in place a national policy related to immigration -- attentive to international guarantees related to individual rights as well as to the rights of trade unions with immigrant members -- has given the space to individual states to enact laws that are in flagrant violation of international norms," stated a letter attached to the complaint from SEIU President Mary K. Henry and SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina.
A spokesman for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley denied the allegations.
"Alabama's immigration law simply seeks to ensure that people who live and work in this state are doing so legally, and there is nothing unjust about that," Jeremy King, spokesman for the governor, stated in an email.
"We agree that federal leaders should comprehensively address immigration reform," King wrote. "So far, the federal government has refused to do so, and that has made it necessary for several states, including Alabama, to craft immigration laws."
The Service Employees International Union filed the complaint regarding the Alabama law -- commonly called HB 56 -- with the UN's International Labour Organization Committee on Freedom of Association.
The ILO is an agency of the UN that promotes the rights of laborers.
"From a trade union perspective, HB 56 is emblematic of the U.S. government's failure to respect its obligations to protect and defend the right to form and join trade unions, and to bargain collectively," the complaint stated.
SEIU has 1,105 members in Alabama and more than 2.1 million members nationwide. The union claims on its website that it represents more immigrant workers than any other union in the United States.
"We believe that the U.S. government's inability to act promptly and decisively to put in place a national policy related to immigration -- attentive to international guarantees related to individual rights as well as to the rights of trade unions with immigrant members -- has given the space to individual states to enact laws that are in flagrant violation of international norms," stated a letter attached to the complaint from SEIU President Mary K. Henry and SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina.
A spokesman for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley denied the allegations.
"Alabama's immigration law simply seeks to ensure that people who live and work in this state are doing so legally, and there is nothing unjust about that," Jeremy King, spokesman for the governor, stated in an email.
"We agree that federal leaders should comprehensively address immigration reform," King wrote. "So far, the federal government has refused to do so, and that has made it necessary for several states, including Alabama, to craft immigration laws."
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