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‘Protect Current Guest Workers Before You Expand the Program’ |
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Until we can protect the basic rights of guest workers already in the United States, Congress should not consider expanding that program, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) President Baldemar Velasquez told the full House Education and Labor Committee yesterday. Half of FLOC’s members are guest workers, he says.
Velasquez told the committee that expanding the current program would only increase the corruption that plagues the program. He cited the longstanding problem of brokers extorting large amounts of money from workers to obtain visas.
To ensure guest workers receive fair treatment, Velasquez told the committee that it is very important to grant guest workers the same labor rights as other workers, including the freedom to join a union.
President Bush’s immigration reform proposal, which would have expanded the guest worker program, collapsed in the Senate late yesterday. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the “anti-family, anti-worker” plan was “doomed at the outset.”
With the support of the immigrant rights community, we will continue to pursue an immigration plan that places workers’ rights at the forefront and removes economic incentives for exploitation. Velasquez was among several union leaders testifying yesterday before Congress on issues of concern to working people, including the need for public safety workers to secure bargaining rights and passenger safety.
Click here to watch a video of Velasquez’s testimony.
2 Comments
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A guest worker program is vital to our economy,and should have
[protections for workers in it, however, it is imperative that it be monitored for abuses by both the workers and employers. To do that you must first account for all the people that have received these visas. Many people come here and then just fade into our society. If you can’t enforce the regulations of the program, how will you enforce worker protections?
All so-called “immigration reform” legislation pending in Congress is lousy. S. 1348 and the STRIVE Act (790 and 697 pages respectively ) go way beyond mere “immigration reform”. They contain provisions for further survelliance on everyone in our nation, and they include language to further privatize government jobs. (Halliburton anyone?) In addition, the bills are mean-spirited and would punish workers for the misdeeds of Congress…i.e. NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA, etc. And if anyone out there believes more than a handful (if that many) Members of Congress actually read the bills then please contact me. I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’ve been trying to unload.
We must demand that Congress adhere to The AFL-CIO Policy on Immigration. Anything less is a further sell out of North American workers!