SEARCH
Bipartisan Bill Would Strengthen Guest Worker Rules |
|
Under current law, unscrupulous employers are free to abuse guest worker programs by exploiting workers, driving down standards and, often, displacing U.S. workers. This hurts all workers and gives these employers an unfair competitive advantage over businesses that play by the rules.
Bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday would provide much-needed security and higher standards in two of the programs. The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), would enhance protections within these visa programs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised the legislation, saying it “makes progress in combating fraud and abuse within the H-1B and L-1 temporary worker programs.”
It’s time for our nation to put an end to employer abuse of these worker programs. Employers should neither be allowed to displace domestic workers nor intimidate guest workers and drive their working standards below those of the domestic labor market.
If enacted, the legislation would:
- Step up U.S. worker recruitment and investment. It would prohibit employers from using H-1B workers to replace qualified American workers. Currently employers are only supposed to hire H-1B workers if there is no qualified U.S. workers for the job.
- Improve wage standards.
- Strengthen the Department of Labor’s ability to prevent and penalize obvious fraud and misrepresentation.
- Enhance the Labor Department’s audit authority by allowing random audits of companies that use H-1B workers and require annual audits of companies that use large numbers of such workers.
- Provide H-1B and L-1 visa holders with job information and employer obligations before they enter the United States.
“The H-1B program should complement the U.S. workforce, not replace it, ” Durbin says.
The H-1B visa program is plagued with fraud and abuse and is now a vehicle for outsourcing that deprives qualified American workers of their jobs. Our bill will put a stop to the outsourcing of American jobs and discrimination against American workers.
Protections also would be strengthened for the L-1 visa program, which allows companies to transfer certain employees from their foreign facilities to the United States for up to seven years. For the first time, the government would be able to investigate, audit and penalize L-1 visa abuses.
Sweeney adds:
It’s up to Congress to reform the broken programs which it created and to make sure that all workers are treated fairly and that everyone’s workplace standards remain high.
Meanwhile, the policy research and advocacy group, the Drum Major Institute, has developed a series of materials that offers strong evidence in favor of immigrant workers‘ positive contributions to Americans’ overall standard of living—and shows how the exploitation of immigrants thereby threatens us all.
Based on its 2007 report, “Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class,” the materials show how consigning undocumented workers to a precarious existence undermines all who aspire to a middle-class standard of living. Click here to download the DMI materials.
DMI policy consultant Cristina Jimenez says:
Providing undocumented workers a path to citizenship, especially in these hard economic times, will help ensure that all workers, regardless of immigration status, are guaranteed equal labor rights and fair wages.
As long as undocumented workers can’t stand up for themselves at work, middle-class Americans will see their own wages and working conditions undermined.
The New York Times agrees. In an editorial on Tuesday, the paper said:
If undocumented immigrants undercut wages and job conditions for Americans—and many do, by tolerating low pay and abuse and bolstering an off-the-books system that robs law-abiding employers and taxpayers—it is because they cannot stand up for their rights.
8 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Again the AFL-CIO stands to protect the rights of illegal aliens over and above the rights of legal citizens.I think it stinks and most other legal citizens think so too.Enforcement of our immigration law is the only thing that needs to be done to give everyone a path to legal citizenship.So long as there is a way for illegals to become citizens without following the law this problem will never go away.I do not care how long the illegal has been here they are still law breakers and probaly always will be.
Absolutely right. Our great leaders certainly fell off the left side of the mountain on this one!
Amnesty for illegals shouldn’t even be a conversation untill our borders are secured”water tight” and unemployment for American citizens is almost zero. Then it still shouldn’t be a subject for labor to consider.
When will labor get back to working for us, its members. labors only goals should be organizing the unorganized and fighting for better wages and working conditions.
How does adding 12, 20 who knows, may be 30 or 50 million new people when you add all the dependents that come along with them. how does that help labor or the USA as a whole.
If you happen to see one of your reps this week, make sure you tell them”THANKS FOR NOTHING!
AFL-CIO are after stricter laws for legal immigration which bigger business use more to bring in office workers. how about us the Union brothers and sisters who work in and around illegal immigrants. Why does AFL-CIO helps the illegal immigrants? AFL-CIO must just help the special interest groups, if they care about the United States Citizens and their Union Brothers and Sisters they would Demand the Government to Deport the illegal aliens. AFL-CIO wake up your members want you to support the laws of the land, Deport illegal aliens. Save the Unions.
Thank you for the article on H-1B.
We need support so that this critical legislation passes. Please keep this issue on the front burner.
The AFL-CIO is doing the right thing in this case. Undocumented workers are workers - and protecting their rights as workers is critical to keeping living standards up for all workers in the U.S. It is not the workers who are hurting us - but the same employers who abuse American-born and legal immigrant workers. The new regulations are designed to get after law-breaking employers and to protect the wages and jobs of all people working in the U.S. now.
What is DMI? Another pro-illegal group? Just what we need! A ‘path to citizenship’ is nothing but amnesty. And what about all those people who are waiting patiently to come to this country legally? Pushing a ‘path to citizenship’ for illegals is a slap in their faces. The actions of the illegals must not be rewarded! No amnesty under any name.
Fiesty,protecting illegal workers rights is critical to keep living standards up?When wages are falling because of them and 7 million legal citizens are out of work and several million more are working two jobs and still can’t pay the bills.How about explaining to me how,legalizing 12 to 20 million illegal aliens is going to help?Also if the AFL-CIO really wants to back law abiding employers all they have to to is get behind E-Verify,this makes a level playing field for everyone involed.
If labor, safety and immigration laws aren’t enforced in any meaningful or significant way, and they are not on either the federal or state level, then the employers will just replace any newly legalized immigrant worker, who was “brought out of the shadows”, with a new exploitable undocumented immigrant worker as soon as he needs to.
WE DON’T ENFORCE ANY LAWS WHEN IT COMES TO THE EMPLOYERS. And the first thing that will happen BEFORE the undocumented migrant worker is brought out into the light to earn his legal status is his employer will get what amounts to instant amnesty. With a green light to continue breaking the back of America’s workers with a continuation of his illegal hiring. Our government regulators and labor unions either can’t or won’t stop it.
We are not going to enforce the new H1-B visa regulations any more then we enforce present immigration or work visa regulations. It is a sham, a farce, a charade and a lie to say they will be enforced.
PROVE I AM WRONG!
I agree that the illegal immigrant isn’t the villain here. It is his employer. And he will walk away free and clear. Free to continue on exploiting workers unhampered and untouched.