By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we welcome UAW Local 259 President Brian Schneck and Vice President Mike Digiuseppe who talk about the union’s fight for first contracts at City World Ford in the Bronx and EmPower Solar in Bethpage — in addition to the election of UAW President Shawn Fain and their union’s demand for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

We also look at the controversy surrounding migrants being bussed into the Tri-State area and the reasons behind it all.

After workers at EmPower voted last month to join the union, the Long Island solar company illegally furloughed 40 percent of the workforce and hired National Labor Relations Advocates — a notorious union-busting law firm based in Ohio. Schneck and Digiuseppe take us inside that ongoing struggle. 

And what was Local 259’s role in the the election of Shawn Fain and the resulting ouster of the UAW’s old corrupt leadership? Schneck and Digiuseppe talk about that, too, in addition to the reasons why their national union is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Last week, dozens of buses chartered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott discharged 1,200 asylum seekers in New Jersey cities to evade an executive order put in place by New York City Mayor Eric Adams ostensibly meant to better regulate the influx of new arrivals so that the city can provide essential health and social service supports they require after their arduous journey.

According to the Local 259 duo, U.S. trade policy that favors multinationals over workers creates the economic dislocation that is prompting so many undocumented migrants to leave their native lands for the U.S.

In the second half of this week’s show, Stuck Nation speaks with Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, who leads one of the cities where buses have delivered asylum seekers. The former member of Jersey’s state legislature also explains how U.S. trade policies including NAFTA help to fuel the exodus from places like Mexico and into the U.S. Gusciora further describes the economic challenges his city has had as a consequence of the mass exit of manufacturing and the lingering impact of the COVID pandemic. 

For well over a year,  Gov. Abbott, along with Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) shipped tens of thousands of migrants to Democratic municipalities including New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, to draw attention to the federal government’s long standing inability to control the flow of migration across the southern border. The migrants transported by the southern states have been processed by federal border officials after entering the U.S. unlawfully and then released to continue their immigration cases inside the country.

In the months since, the flow has continued with Mayor Adams telling reporters at his weekly Jan. 2nd press briefing that the week prior, the city had gotten 3,000 migrant asylum seekers from Texas. While the news media and politicians describe the influx as a crisis, it’s important to note that during the ‘golden age’ of U.S. immigration in the late 19th and 20th centuries, Ellis Island handled 10,000 immigrants a day whose only requirement for entry was that they be healthy and had paid their passage.  

In Edison, Mayor Sam Joshi, a Democrat, took a hardline, telling Fox News he had a charter bus on standby to send the migrant back to the U.S./Mexican border. On other broadcast outlets he painted a perilous picture of imminent danger to his local citizens which echoed the language used by former President Donald Trump.

Listen to the entire show below:

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