The vote scored here is a vote to table, and thus kill, the amendment.
The Legislation:
The Amendment to Remove the Guest Worker Program from the Comprehensive Immigration Bill of 2006 strikes language from the proposed Senate immigration bill that would have created a new temporary worker (or “guest worker”) program. The guest worker program would create a new category of H-2C visas, with 350,000 (later capped at 200,000) available each year for jobs paying the U.S. prevailing wage for a given occupation. Employers would first be required to advertise these positions to U.S. workers. The visas would be available to workers outside the United States who pay a fee, undergo health and background checks, and have a job offer. These temporary workers could bring their families to the U.S. and work for three years with the possibility of renewing their visas one time to work for an additional three years. After their first four years working in the U.S., guest workers could apply for a green card. The guest worker program would not be permitted to operate in areas with an unemployment rate of greater than nine percent.
The underlying immigration bill also includes increased border and internal immigration enforcement, new penalties for document fraud and for unlawfully employing of an undocumented immigrant, mandated employer use of an electronic system to verify all employees’ work authorization, provisions reducing the backlog for permanent family visas, and a system of earned legalization open to undocumented immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for a certain period of time. None of these provisions would be impacted by the amendment removing the guest worker program.
The Middle-Class Position:
The Middle Class Supports This Amendment and Opposes the Procedural Vote To Kill It. The middle class supports removing the guest worker provisions from the comprehensive immigration reform bill because of the potential for these vulnerable temporary employees to be exploited in ways that downgrade wages and working conditions for American workers. The fundamental problem with any guest worker program is the way it institutionalizes the second-tier status of immigrant workers, providing employers with a constantly renewing labor force that is in many ways at their mercy, and thus will tend to be paid less and work under worse conditions than citizens. The more jobs that can be transformed into “guest worker jobs,” the fewer domestic jobs will provide the wages and benefits capable of providing a middle-class standard of living. While the bill’s provisions for temporary workers to be hired at the prevailing wage would provide some important protection against this race to the bottom, a constant supply of disempowered guest workers could still prevent wages in an industry dominated by guest workers from rising when they otherwise might.
In addition to the general problem with guest worker programs, the specific program established by this bill leaves immigrant workers vulnerable to exploitation in additional ways. By mandating that guest workers who are unemployed for more than 60 days leave the country, the bill puts pressure on workers to remain in jobs with substandard wages and working conditions or rush to accept a new job with poor conditions before the period runs out, out of fear of losing legal status. In addition, stronger mechanisms for enforcing the bill’s labor protections are needed, because the bill’s weak administrative process carried out at the discretion of the already overburdened Department of Labor risks being insufficient to genuinely deter violations.
From the Experts:
“Exploitation of immigrants hurts all of us. It drives down wages and working conditions for all of us. Again and again employers say they need immigrant workers because U.S.-born workers won't do the jobs. But you know and I know it's the unacceptable wages--not the work--that U.S. workers reject. Allowing immigrant workers to be exploited--by yesterday's Bracero program or today's guest worker programs--is immoral and far outside the values to which America aspires. If employers can demonstrate a real need for outside workers, immigration laws should require that they be allowed into our country with the same rights and labor protections of any U.S. citizen. When there is a real need for foreign workers, we should embrace them not as temporary commodities but as full members of our society.” –John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO (May 4, 2006)
“A guest worker program that does not permit free mobility by foreign workers admitted to the U.S. carries significant risks to the U.S. economy… If guest workers do not have the opportunity to change jobs with minimal administrative burden, other workers in the U.S. will potentially suffer because employers will have some scope to exploit guest workers and lower labor conditions more generally… The experience with H1-B visas has been that enforcement is inadequate to ensure that all workers are paid what they are promised or paid the prevailing wage...” –Alan B. Krueger, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Princeton University (April 4, 2006)
Beyond this Bill:
The status quo on immigration policy is unacceptable for the middle class: although the middle class relies on immigrants’ economic contributions as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers, aspiring middle-class Americans are also harmed when the exploitation of undocumented workers threatens to push down their wages and working conditions. The political compromise represented in this comprehensive immigration bill – including a nonsensical multi-tiered system which would have offered legal status and a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants but not others, depending solely on the number of years they lived in the U.S. – does not adequately address the situation. (See DMI’s more in-depth analysis of the entire bill here.) Legislation that truly aims to strengthen and expand the American middle class must both bolster the critical contribution that immigrants make to our economy as workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and consumers and strengthen the rights of immigrants in the workplace.
Number workers employed in the U.S. under the nation’s current guest worker programs, who were aggressively recruited from Latin America to fill hotel jobs in post-Katrina New Orleans and then exploited by their employer, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center: 84
Percentage of workers in one study whose employers found out their immigration papers were falsified yet who were not fired until they complained about workplace conditions: 25
Percentage who were not fired until they tried to organize a union: 21
Number of days unemployed guest workers could legally remain in the U.S. without starting a new job: 60
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