Bing arrested the leader of the California union. Trump understands what this means?

Unions in California are different from unions elsewhere.

Compared to any state in our troubled country, their hierarchy is filled with people of color and immigrants. Although unions have been closely linked to civil struggles, the struggle has become even more apparent in the years since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

In the subsequent search of national souls, the union was forced to do its own thing. But under pressure from President Trump’s right-wing anger, the conversation collapsed to a large extent, and it occupied the union’s interior to a greater extent—leading more leadership, sometimes younger leaders, and definitely from the hierarchy and applying for the understanding of these organizations that are far beyond the workplace.

That's why David Huerta, SEIU-USWW and SEIU California president of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will have a significant impact on deportation in the coming months on Friday.

“They have woken us up,” Tia Or told me Saturday morning. She is the executive director of the 700,000 service employees of the California International Union, Huerta is part of it and the first African-American and Latino to lead the organization.

“And I think they've woken up nationwide, of course in California and people are ready to take action,” she added. “I haven't seen it in a long time. I don't know I've seen something like that before, so, yes, I think it's going to be an action of history.”

Since the Maga threat first showed up, unions have expressed disapproval of mass deportation, but their possibility has not gone all out, but has taken some treatment approach.

OK guys, we've seen it. We have seen unidentified masked men rounding up immigrants around the country and transporting them to life sentences in tortured foreign prisons; we watch a 9-year-old Southern California boy separate from his father and detained and deported. On Friday in Los Angeles, we saw an anonymous military force sweeping our neighbors, family and friends, which seemed like an accidental and intentional cruel way.

For those who have watched the video of Huerta's arrest, we've seen a middle-aged Latino man wearing plaid buttons that push the authorities roughly into riot gear until he falls backward, seemingly touching his head on the side of the road. According to a TV interview with Karen Bass. He was then taken to the hospital for treatment and then detained until the trial was initiated on Monday.

We atty. Bill Essayli wrote on social media: “Federal agents enforced legal judicial orders at the workplace in Los Angeles this morning when David Huerta intentionally blocked their vehicles from obstructing their access. He was arrested for interfering with federal officials… Let me make it clear: I don't care who you are, if you don't care about federal agents, if you're in vain, or a strike, you're arrested and put in vain duty.”

I have been reporting on violent and non-violent protests for twenty years. In the first such incident I covered, I watched an iconic union leader, Bill Camp, sitting in the middle of the road in a Santa suit, refusing to move. The police arrested him. But they managed to do this without violence and without the resistance of the camp. This is how unions do their troubles – no fear, no violence.

Huerta knows better the rules and power of peaceful protest than most. He is the president of the SEIU Joint Service Workers West, and began the justice movement for the gatekeeper movement in 1990, a bottom-up campaign in Los Angeles, which is primarily supported by immigrant Latino women who clean up commercial office space for $7 an hour.

After weeks of protests, police attacked Latino workers known as the “War of the Century” in June of that year. Two dozen workers were injured, but the union did not retreat. Ultimately, it won the contract being sought and, equally importantly, it won the public support.

Huerta joined the USWW a few years after the incident, adding justice to the Janitors campaign. The Alliance was and has been supported by immigrant workers who believed collective power was their best power, and Huerta led to decades of building this truth into practical power. Orr said he is an organizer who knows how to bring people together.

It would be an understatement to say that he is a beloved and respected leader of the Alliance and California. You can still find his resume on the White House website as he was awarded the “Champion of Change” by President Obama. Within hours of his arrest, political leaders across the state expressed support.

Governor Gavin Newsom posted online: “David Huerta is a respected leader, patriot and a supporter of the working people.

Perhaps more importantly, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler delivered a statement addressing her 15 million members.

Whirta is “doing what he has been doing, and what we do in the union: putting unity into practice and defending our colleagues.” “The Labor Movement stands with David and we will continue to demand justice from our union brothers until he is released.”

Similar statements come from teammates and other unions. Solidarity is not a buzzword for unions. This is the cornerstone of their power. That unity has been supercharged when Huerta was arrested. Union members from across the state are already planning to gather at Holta on Monday for interrogation in downtown Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, a Santa Monica native and architect of Trump’s deportation program, said the raids we’re seeing now are just the beginning, and he hopes to see thousands of arrests every daybecause our immigration community is filled with “every criminal thug you can imagine on earth.”

But when Huerta was arrested, the battlefield had been redrawn in a way we have not yet fully appreciated. There is no doubt that Miller will behave in his own way, and the raid will not only continue, but will increase.

However, the union will not retreat.

“Currently, just over the last 14 hours, unions have gone from far away and the community has reached out in ways I’ve never seen it,” Orr told me. “Somewhat different.”

She noted that Rosa Parks was just a woman on the bus until she was more. George Floyd is just another black man stopped by the police. Until he has more.

Huerta is more of the stuff these immigrants attacked – not because he is the union boss, but because he is the union organizer, keeping in touch with those in power and those who are afraid.

The next few months will show what happens when the two groups jointly decide what backups are not an option.