The debate around immigration in Washington brings the same smoke and mirrors each election cycle: anti-immigrant slogans about "securing the border" flashing alongside craftily worded policies to sustain the flow of cheap labor, legal or not. Politicians seem to want it both ways: keeping immigrants locked into a brutal underground workforce, while using mass deportation and constant abuse to exclude them from society.
One popular "compromise" policy on immigration, the "guest worker model," perfectly weds the ideas of "free markets" and forced labor. For many years, special visa programs have allowed employers to hire temporary foreign labor at paltry wages with minimal oversight. It would be the ultimate captive labor force, except a few things get in the way -- mainly that even these workers have some rights under the law, plus indentured servitude looks terribly out-of-date these days, even with Washington's stamp of approval.
In recent months, young workers channeled into Hershey factory jobs under the J-1 visa "student exchange" program have protested against cruel, coercive working conditions. Advocates have also called attention to exploited workers under the H2-B program, which places tens of thousands of temporary workers in trades like hotel services and landscaping. For years, various investigations and lawsuits have exposed systematic abuses of seasonal farmworkers in the H2-A program, who toil in conditions often akin to slavery.
The federal government has made some small steps toward addressing guest worker exploitation . As we've reported before, reforms to the J-1 program are apparently underway to rein in the abuse and trafficking of youth.
New revisions to the H2-B rules would tighten oversight of bosses to prevent them from skirting wage and hour laws and from retaliating against workers who file complaints. Employers would also have disclose the use of foreign recruitment services, which are known around the world for facilitating debt bondage and human trafficking networks.
Daniel Castellanos, an activist with New Orleans-based National Guestworker Alliance, said in a statement, "For too long, guest workers have been lured to the U.S. with false promises of an American Dream, and instead faced deep debt and exploitation... Because these rules contain real worker protections and expand our right to organize, we can win fair wages and working conditions for all workers."
Castellanos arrived in New Orleans from Peru in 2005, hoping to aid with the post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. Soon he and hundreds of other imported workers found themselves stuck in menial hotel jobs and sinking deeper into debt as the promised wages never materialized. Post-Katrina recovery efforts were replete with such labor abuses. Hundreds of guest workers from India faced a similar crisis; according to a lawsuit against the marine industry firm Signal International, they were trafficked into the U.S., held under brutal conditions in "overcrowded labor camps," and cheated out of their pay.
While Labor Department's new measures might help prevent some abuses, they skirt the heart of the problem: Far from offering a more regulated alternative to undocumented migrant labor, guest worker programs (which have been the model for mainstream immigration reform proposals) encourage the same abuses that "illegal" workers suffer. The end result is an inherently unequal tiered workforce, abetted by anemic regulatory regimes and a web of subcontractors that dodge the law. Though this pattern undermines both citizen and immigrant workers, too often the crisis goads immigrant bashing rather than condemnation of unscrupulous companies.
Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project told In These Times, "All of the guest worker programs that focus on low wage work have one thing in common: Employers bypass available U.S. workers in favor of temporary foreign workers who are subjected to abusive conditions up to and including outright debt bondage and trafficking." Smith also noted that employers can easily avoid oversight by contracting with other companies.
Such outsourcing of exploitation is a common practice cross the workforce, immigrants and citizens alike. When employers rely on sketchy subcontractors, Smith said:
Workers lose out on labor rights, often because they don't know who the main employer is, or don't know they have a right to pursue it for violations... It's one of the reasons that job quality is deteriorating and one of the ways in which the 1 percent who rule the workplace are undermining economic security for the rest of us who work for a living.
Ultimately, the ball is in the court of Congress, whose long stalemate on immigration reform caters to the corporations that prey on migrants. Bruce Goldstein of Farmworker Justice told In These Times:
The failure of Congress to pass immigration reform, especially a legalization program for undocumented workers, is having devastating effects on farmworkers and their families. And the increased number of deportations and incredibly punitive state immigration laws are exacerbating these problems. The administration is taking some action that is helpful, but it doesn't have the power to change the immigration laws.
Cross-posted from In These Times
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Two problems with that supposed fix. 1) Those "comprehensive immigration reform" bills always contain new exploitative guest worker programs of the type this article describes. 2) Legalization not only doesn't solve the problem, it makes it worse. If the old, newly legalized workers become harder to exploit, guess where the employer will turn? NEW illegal works. Thus, all legalization does is create demand for a new wave of slaves.
In fact, it's “undocumented” immigration that has a devastating effect on Farm Workers and their families. Farm Workers top the Pew Center list of occupations most affected by Illegal Immigration with 25% of this workforce made up of Illegal Immigrants. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Farm Workers earn a median wage of $8.64 per hour. Construction Laborers who work equally hard with comparable skills but they earn median wages between $11.23 and $13.19 per hour. The lowest skilled Loggers earn a median wage of $14.66 per hour. Even Parking Lot Attendants have higher median wages than Farm Laborers at $9.04 per hour.
The sad part is even if farm wages increased to the level of Laborers and Loggers, to a median wage of $13.50 per hour, the cost of farm labor is only 7% of the cost of food. The result would be a 4.5% increase in food prices. The average American household currently spends about $370 per year on fruits and vegetables. Such an increase to a living wage would cost the average American Household than $17 per year.
With an average Farm Worker unemployment rate of 22.3% (over 30% if you count those who want to work) allowing Illegal Immigrants to work devastates employment and wages for American Farm Workers.
No - IT IS THE FAILURE OF OUR GOVERNMENT TO ENFORCE THE LAWS CURRENTLY ON THE BOOKS THAT ALLOWS THIS EXPLOITATION TO GO ON.
People this opinion piece talks about who exploit workers are violating the laws that establish the H-2b and J-1 Visas. Just like those who hire people living in the USA illegally are also violating the law. Changing the law does nothing other than change the laws that will never be enforced and thus ignored with impunity. The only way to end this exploitation is to enforce the law, and after we achieve full enforcement, then see if change is needed. The real smoke and mirrors is the idea that if you try changing an unenforced law enough times, maybe someday people will actually abide by it.
Back on 2007 fully 60% of the lobbying for comprehensive immigration reform was paid for by big business. Since then, more big business money has gone to the Democrats than to Republicans and most of the attempts to gut enforcement of our immigration law has come from the Democrats. Much has changed since 2007. Solyndra should tell you everything you need to know about who is in bed with whom.
1. University daytime attendance students.
2. Aged between 18 and 28 years old.
3. English-speaking.
4. Willing to work hard and earn cash.
5. Able to work for 3 to 4 months.
6. Have all required papers to legally work in USA.
Students from both the northern and the southern hemispheres apply legibly for Work and Travel USA program. Check the interactive map below to see the statistics for participating countries gathered 2006 through 2010 including countries such as Russia, China, Turkey, Mongolia, Ukraine, Serbia, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Peru, Moldova, Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines, Jamaica, Chile etc. The map also shows months of coming and leaving the US. http://www.jobofer.org/countries/
A group of young Pakistanis came to a welding school and were forced into slave labor for years
They finally got away from it, and took their bitter hatred of us back home with them.
As long as you have work visas there will be abuse. The ONLY solution is to end all work visas. The federal government has no business driving down wages. The federal government has no business interfering in the labor markets.
it's time to say "adios illegales" to illegal immigrants,
they have to go.