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Bush Administration Wants to Take Away Guest Workers’ Rights |
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In another lame-duck effort to put its anti-worker agenda into practice for years to come, the Bush administration is proposing to strip a number of rights from workers here under the H-2A agricultural guest worker program. H-2A and H-2B visa programs bring agricultural and other seasonal workers into this country to pick crops, build houses and process seafood, among other jobs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the proposal:
will hurt both immigrant and U.S.-born workers alike. The Bush administration has shown once again that it will go to any extreme to cater to the interest of corporations at the painful expense of workers, and that it is not serious about real fixes to our nation’s broken immigration system.
The proposal will strip the H-2A agricultural guest worker program of necessary wage protections, undermine other essential worker protections, weaken efforts to recruit workers from this country and further erode government oversight, Sweeney says.
Guest workers typically are deeply in debt by the time they arrive in the United States. Companies that hire them often exploit them and charge them additional fees for boarding, food and expenses. Last year, President Bush proposed expanding the guest worker program, a move that unions and civil rights advocates opposed. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States, relates that it is not unusual for guest workers to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year’s worth of income in a country like Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on loans brokers charge to get them into the country are sometimes as high as 20 percent a month. Homes and vehicles are required as collateral.
The Labor Department policy, Sweeney says:
will do nothing to solve the problem at hand—the need for a fair immigration policy that protects all workers—and instead will ensure a deterioration of working conditions in the agricultural sector and make our nation’s employers even more reliant on the importation and exploitation of foreign workers.
The answer is simple, he adds:
We need comprehensive immigration reform that provides relief to the growing number of undocumented workers in our country by offering them a path to citizenship. We do not need more policies that turn our nation back in the wrong direction.
6 Comments
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Dear brother Sweeney,I would like to let you know that you are as out of touch with the rank and file on illegal immigration as the government.I for one to not feel we owe these people anything.They came here of there own free will illegally let them suffer the consequences of that decision.Our government need only do one thing to cure our illegal alien problem,enforce our laws and our unions need to stop supporting these people.I swore an oath to this country when I became union member and part of that oath was to do nothing illegal against this country.I certainly did not intend for my union Reps to support anything illegal and that includes people marching in the streets speaking spanish and carrying the Mexican flag. These people have no place in a country of laws.Go down to Mexico and give them a boost up if you really want to help them.
Brother Sweeney ,
As a fellow Union member I am so proud to hear my Union President sticking up for the the Guest Workers. It is good to know that our Leadership recognizes the fact that the Union stands up for all Workers.
What some of our Rank-in-File fail to realize is that under Bush’s Anti-Worker, Anti-Union policies, Guest Workers are treated like second class citizens. They are exploited for low wages and poor working conditions. This hurts both them and American Workers.
Other than the right to vote in our elections,These Workers Guests in our country,should have the same rights and protections All American Workers have.
Thank you President Sweeney for your Leadership on this important issue and also for your realization that Our Union Struggle is the Struggle to improve the lives of All Workers throughout the World.
Dr. Bigot,
Well I hope you have not done anything illegal against the country. These undocumented workers are not asking for handouts, they are here to work. Next time you get a tile job done or a roofing or plumbing job done, you don’t have to wave a flag at them, just respect them for a fine job done.
Remember, Europe invaded America, drove the Native Americans away, placed them in our own Guantanamo; Indian Reservations.
Just because the color of skin is white, it isn’t always right!
Take the dictator Bush for example, one white guy who isn’t right; mentally for one!
Next time you go to a Mexican resturaunt, what if they told you, Spanish when you order or get out?
The food is good but you don’t like the people!
You think I’m a bigot.I don’t use non-union or illegal workers at my home or anywhere else for that matter.I do not eat at mexican restaurants because I know my dollars are going back to Mexico,so they can send us some more illegal aliens.How did skin color get into this I didn’t bring it up I don’t care what color they are thay have broken the laws of this country and no one has the right to do that not even legal citizens.These people want given to them what my ancestors have fought and died for,there are legal ways to come to work here and unions should not be supporting illegal immigration.
Where did you read they want given to them what your ancestors fought and died for? And what exactly did your ancestors fight and die for? They would like to to come over legally but your dictator’s govt, has made it harder to get get over, paper work ,homeland security….etc… (and the 9/11 flyers didn’t some over from Mexico!) Some people wait over 10 yrs. just to become citizens. Why so long?
There are soldiers from the US fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan from Mexico, when they die, the govt says so long.. the families aren’t even granted citizenship! But these people are fighting an illegal war and you must be glad it isn’t you are your kid there!
As for color of skin, there is more than one color in the human race. Have you thought of all the Asian undocumented workers in the US? over 20 million! Why isn’t the govt. whining about that?
Oh and I guess you don’t eat Chinese food because your money ends up in China!
Guest workers are not illegal. They were recruited by companies to come here to work. Unfortunately, they have been exploited horribly by these companies. I believe that if we do not want people working in this country that are here illegally, then we should not make it so easy for companies to exploit these workers and allow them to treat them like SLAVES once they get here. Again, it’s a human rights issue. If companies want to go to other countries to recruit guest workers, then they have to guarantee them this country’s minimum wage and protections under the law. It is the companies that do not want to follow these guidelines that will bring workers into this country illegally, so they could save lots of money at the human rights expenses of foreigners who only want a decent life. I said this before - this country has created the problem, then we blame the illegals for being here to begin with. With this we have continued to propagate slavery, and have ceased to be a moral nation.