Founded in 1968 by veteran labor and immigrant rights organizers with ties to the union upsurge of the 1930s, CASA (Centro de Acción Social Autonomo--Hermandad General de Trabajadores) became a key organizing center for immigrant workers during the 1970s. This report on CASA's activities appeared in the group's newspaper, Sin Fronteras in March 1974. Humberto (Bert) Corona, one of CASA's founders, explains CASA's goals: to defend immigrant workers, build solidarity with other workers through U.S. trade unions, and link the struggles of working people in the U.S. and Latin America. 

How to cite this article: Humberto N. Corona, "Activities of the Brotherhood of Immigrant Workers, C.A.S.A.," Sin Fronteras, March 1974, p. 6.   

Activities of the Brotherhood of Immigrant Workers, C.A.S.A

The purpose of the General Brotherhood of Immigrant Workers is to represent the real life interests of immigrant workers and their families. In so doing it has to fight for the real life interests of all of the workers since workers are in reality inseparable. This is not merely a cliche, an abstraction or generality but a very specific and concrete reality. When employers pit one set of workers or one group of workers against each other they may appear to be favoring a part of the workers and even be able to convince temporarily these workers of their being favored but sooner than later the favored workers are themselves victimized as thoroughly as those that were originally not so favored. This is the experience of workers. Immigrant workers thusly participate and very militantly in strikes and in boycotts. They join unions and in the historic development of the trade union movement in the U.S.A., immigrant workers have made a major contribution in industry after industry and strike after strike. The history of the development of American trade unions is synonymous with the struggle of immigrant workers of every color, race, religion and national origin, for equal treatment and against exploitation.

The General Brotherhood of Immigrant Workers views the fight to remove the harsh inequities suffered by immigrant workers and their families on the job, in the community and in the society as a whole as the fight to remove all inequities and all exploitation against all workers, regardless of sex, color, national origin or place in the production process. On the job it demands that immigrant workers’ rights and conditions be respected on a par with all other workers. The objective is to make it unprofitable for employers to exploit workers just because they are not native-born, not white, do not speak English or do not have visas. But asking employers to give up these prerogatives is like asking them to give up the profit system. So our organization understands full well that the struggle is against the very pillars of the Capitalist system.

At this moment the activities of the General Brotherhood of Immigrant Workers are directed not only to change the inequitable and iniquitous immigration laws, policies and practices towards immigrant workers with or without documents and to defend the daily life interests of their families in the racist and alienating society in which they exist but its activities are also directed against the Nixon wage freeze and provoked inflation that is robbing all workers of their daily bread. Its activities are also directed to assist workers to form their own unions, in their strikes, boycotts, in their efforts to force employers to observe the collective bargaining contracts. Collaborationist union leaders are being confronted by rank-and-file caucuses of immigrant workers that demand honest and militant leadership against the bosses’ tactics.

Our organization is a true fusion of the traditional Mexican and Latin American mutual-aid and self-help brotherhood and a typical U.S.A. political organization. We are Spanish and English speaking because 97% of all immigrant workers in the U.S. are from Latin America and 93% from Mexico. We are an extension of Mexico and Latin American workers’ traditions and forms but at the same time we are acting and moving out of the needs and realities of our presence in the U.S.A. We take direct action, picket, demonstrate, strike, boycott, lobby, advocate and do general community public relations on T.V., Radio and all news media. We are a constant training program-in-action. We are continually expanding, proliferating and organizing new centers and groups where ever immigrant workers are working and living.

We are continuously coalescing with all other groups and forces that are working on behalf of immigrant workers and their families such as with Unions, Churches, ethnic groups and community groups. We are in joint action nationally with Black liberation groups, prisoner liberation groups, with the AIM Movement for Native American liberation, with the Peace movement, with the anti-drugs movement in our barrios and ghettos and the other movements for the liberation of Latin American peoples such as the Independence For Puerto Rico movement, the Coalition to Restore Democracy in Chile and the Movements to Free political prisoners in Latin America. Our base is of course the immigrant worker- and his family but our base is also the Chicano community’s struggles for liberation and its youth movement in colleges and universities.

Our centers are called C.A.S.A., an acronym, that stands for Center for Autonomous Social Action but also means “Home” in Spanish. They are just what these words spell out…homes for immigrant and other oppressed people and mainly Spanish-speaking. These CASAs also are what the acronym states, autonomous social action centers that depend only on the members dues and contributions and not on government subsidies and concomitant control by the exploiting forces in our society. We do not depend on grants from churches, foundations or unions. Immigrant workers support, maintain, profit from, lead and develop these centers. It is no accident that we have been the targets of police, immigration and other law-enforcement agencies’ repression and also the targets of extreme-leftist and elitist groups that see our democratic and truly worker-based-strength as a threat to their machinations.

We are now organizing from New York to California, from the Canadian to the Mexican Border. We just participated in a ten-state conference in Chicago for the specific purpose of starting C.A.S.A. centers and Brotherhoods of Immigrant workers in the major industrial states of the Midwest U.S.A. We have groups of organizers traveling through these states at this very moment and others have been traveling throughout the Southwest and the Northwest U.S.A. On March 8-9-10th we held a national conference tor Fair Immigrant Laws and Practices in Los Angeles, California for the specific purpose of making this movement a truly national movement of trade union groups, church groups, community and student groups united behind the determination to put an end forever to the inhuman, unequal and exploiting treatment of immigrant workers and their families in the United States.

Unless effective steps are taken in the U.S.A. to organize immigrant workers into trade unions and into their own self-defense groups so there is joint action with U.S. trade unions and the trade unions of the sending countries, the giant monopolies will be able to create and exploit divisions amongst workers and depress the living standards of all. This workers’ unity is unthinkable without the solidarity of and with the immigrant workers.

Finally, in the U.S.A. the demands of immigrant workers—both those they share with other working people be they native-born or with documents and their own specific special demands can be met only by tearing down the racist and nationalist discriminatory barriers between working people. We must fight to eliminate all that isolates immigrant workers from the native and permanent resident workers. We must help workers to fight side by side with the masses of workers in and out of the trade unions with native-born and residents of all races, colors and national origins against the common enemy.

Humberto N. Corona, Secretario
Hermandad General de Trabajadores Immigrantes, C.A.S.A.
2673 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, California, 90006
U.S.A.