Southern Poverty Law Center finds guest worker program close to slavery
There is no more divisive issue for advocates of progressive immigration reform than the policy of temporary guest workers. As a cornerstone the President's proposed immigration policy, it's been viewed with intense suspicion by many on the left. Some immigration rights advocates, such as Cecilia Muñoz, head of National Council of La Raza see Bush's guest worker program as the best hope to allow future immigrants to enter the country legally and eventually be put on a path to citizenship. Other's see it as dangerous policy, ripe with opportunities for abuse.
Even amongst organize labor, which generally supports legalization of all current undocumented workers and other progressive reforms, there is a divide when it comes to guest workers. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has strongly advocated for a modified guest worker program, while the AFL-CIO opposes one.
The Southern Poverty Law Center now weights in on the debate with a report that examines the current H2 visa program which brought approximately 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005. The report released this week called; "Close to Slavery" found widespread abuse and exploitation of the program.
Back in January, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, sent a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is working to craft a new immigration reform bill for this legislative session, laying out his union's position on immigration reform and recommendations for any future guestworker program: SEIU recognizes the need for new workers in the low-wage sector of our expanding economy. However, any new worker program must include worker protections including: portability of visas so that workers can change jobs, the right to join unions and have full labor rights, the right to bring their families with them, and the ability to self-petition for permanent residency and citizenship. SEIU
But according to the SPLC, without carefully written protections and strict enforcement of labor standards any new guest worker program will be ripe for the same kind of exploitation that's prevalent in the current system. Based on interviews with thousands of guestworkers, the report found a pattern or widespread exploitation, deplorable living conditions, and a system that amounts to little more than indentured servitude. … the United States already has a guestworker program for unskilled laborers — one that is largely hidden from view because the workers are typically socially and geographically isolated. Before we expand this system in the name of immigration reform, we should carefully examine how it operates.
Under the current system, called the H-2 program, employers brought about 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005 — approximately 32,000 for agricultural work and another 89,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.
These workers, though, are not treated like "guests." Rather, they are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who "import" them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.
Federal law and U.S. Department of Labor regulations provide some basic protections to H-2 guestworkers — but they exist mainly on paper. Government enforcement of their rights is almost non-existent. Private attorneys typically won't take up their cause.
Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are:
Close to Slavery; Guestworker Programs in the United States SPLC (HTML)
After carefully documenting the failures of the current guestworker program, the 48 page report goes on to list recommendations to make any future program more fair and effective. As this report shows, the H-2 guestworker program is fundamentally flawed. Because guestworkers are tied to a single employer and have little or no ability to enforce their rights, they are routinely exploited. The guestworker program should not be expanded or used as a model for immigration reform. If this program is permitted to continue at all, it should be radically altered to address the vast disparity in power between guestworkers and their employers.
I. Federal laws and regulations protecting guestworkers from abuse must be strengthened:
II. Federal agency enforcement of guestworker protections must be strengthened:
III. Congress must provide guestworkers with meaningful access to the courts:
These reforms are overdue. For too long, our country has benefited from the labor provided by guestworkers but has failed to provide a fair system that respects their human rights and upholds the most basic values of our democracy. The time has come for Congress to overhaul our shamefully abusive guestworker system.
Close To Slavery; Guestworker Programs in the United States SPLC (PDF)
This new report, along with its recommendations, will certainly add a new dimension to the debate over any new temporary guest worker proposal. By documenting and examining what has happened when, as President Bush likes to claim, "willing foreign workers (are matched) with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs," the Southern Poverty Law Center has provided valuable insight into the problems and pitfalls of such programs.
tags: immigration, guest workers , H2 Visa, SPLC
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