BONITA (Florida) DAILY NEWS

May 1, 2006

Impact of protests might be without precedent

Planned demonstrations could have dramatic impact on economy, some say

By Melissa Cassutt

Monday, May 1, 2006

The degree of economic impact from today's planned protests is as unknown as many of the faces in the immigration reform rallies.

Scattered marches and another work strike to protest proposed immigration reform have been planned for today — deemed the Day Without an Immigrant — as a second sample of the Hispanic community's strengthening backbone. Following up the April 10 march that rallied an estimated 80,000 people into the streets of Fort Myers, undocumented workers and immigrant advocates are hoping to show the economic impact of losing workers that Southwest Florida is dependent upon.

Should the Day Without an Immigrant snowball into a country without them, the argument is Florida and other tourism or service-based states will be severely impacted.

"A lot of people would be shocked if they realized how big of an impact this would make," said D.T. Minich, executive director of the Lee County Visitors & Convention Bureau. "These are people that mow your lawns, these are people that work in restaurants. It's much further reaching than what a lot of people think."

A March 7 study released by the Pew Hispanic Center, a national research organization that tracks and analyzes Hispanic issues, estimated that 11.5 million to 12 million undocumented workers live in the U.S. The same study concluded that 4.9 percent of the civilian labor force in March 2005 was made up of undocumented workers.

No area studies have been conducted, but anecdotal evidence and tourist experts suggest Southwest Florida could suffer from skyrocketing prices should immigrants be deported as one immigration proposal suggests.

Though there are many proposals in the works, the bill causing the most uprising is House Resolution 4437, which was passed earlier this year. Should the bill be made into law, the Mexican border would be fenced and illegal immigrants would become felons. Less stringent proposals in the Senate propose establishing guest worker programs.

Any reform that would drastically diminish the undocumented workers could cause economic ripples beyond what might be predicted. Since the largely under-the-radar culture is hard to track, it's hard to tell how intertwined the people are in our system, Minich said.

"Everyone is freaking out about $3 a gallon for gas, but they're saying, 'Oh we'll pay a lot more for all these services'," Minich said. "I don't think these people that made those types of comments realize what it would take to replace those types of workers."

The seriousness of the movement has already resonated to many local businesses that were burned by employees who skipped their shifts on April 10. Though many companies don't know exactly what to expect today, this time around many more employers made a point to check their employees' intentions for May 1.

Economic strikes, a successful tactic used by the civil rights and the gay rights movements, are already having an impact on Southwest Florida.

Ross Edlund, the owner of Skillets, a three-chain restaurant in Bonita Springs and Naples, closed two stores on April 10 because of the number of workers who wanted to participate in the Fort Myers rally. His staff, which he said is nearly 30 percent Hispanic, is not participating in the second strike, he said.

"I don't see there's a lot of steam for this one," Edlund said. "It's not the same type of enthusiasm I felt the first time around."

The Hyatt Regency Hotel on Coconut Road also monitored its largely Hispanic staff to get an idea of who might not be coming in, said Shara Valerio-Ball, hotel spokeswoman. More than 50 percent of the hotel's staff is a part of the ethnic minority, she said.

"We actually didn't have any problems the last strike," Valerio-Ball said. "If someone wanted the day off, they had to ask ahead of time. If they didn't show up, they'd get the consequence of any other day they took off."

The only commonality between the local Hispanic groups' May 1 plans seems to be the word strike itself. Groups like Concilio Mexicano de la Florida (Mexican Council of Florida) and the Coalicion de Trabajadores de Immokalee (Coalition of Immokalee Workers) have planned lower-scale protests to the estimated 200,000-person march in Orlando, but the movement is being largely left in each individual's hands. Some are carpooling to Orlando, others are taking the day to march in small local protests, but many more are expected to just stay home.

"I know there's a lot of confusion with our people," said Juan Romero, a Bonita Springs Hispanic rights advocate. He encouraged people to stay off the streets and stay at home, saying Southwest Florida's voice was heard in the Fort Myers march.

"We tried to tell the people to stay home and not spend any money," he said. "Watch the news and look at what's happening around the country."

The hesitance to take to the streets and some refusals to take another day off of work might be the result of some firings that happened after the April 10 strike, said Genelle Grant, educational program specialist for the Florida Migrant Interstate Program at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Though the movement's support is still strong, many immigrants are worried about losing their jobs, she said.

"There probably will be quite a few people who don't do it actually," Grant said. "The reality would be even more severe than what we're going to experience (today). There are many people who just don't dare to jeopardize their job."