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.
Solis Investigating Guest Worker Visas on Florida Hotel Project
In one of her first official acts as labor secretary, Hilda Solis has asked for a review of how Mexican sheet metal workers were given visas to work on the St. Regis Hotel project in Bal Harbour, Fla., when more than 1,000 members of the Sheet Metal Workers union (SMWIA) are out of work in the same area.
The company hired to install the heating and air conditioning ducts, CYVSA International, received approval from the state of Florida and the Bush Labor Department for visas to bring in foreign workers for seasonal work. But the visas are supposed to be granted only if there are no Americans available to do the job.
Florida ranked second in the number of jobs certified for foreign workers under one of the visa programs known as H-2B. In 2008, a total of 22,195 jobs in the state were approved for H-2B foreign workers, including 1,145 construction workers, 119 roofers, 10 electricians and six bricklayers.
Rep. Ellison Joins Faith and Labor Leaders in Urging Release of Jailed Workers
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Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota, follows up on the Indian guest workers who this past spring and summer waged a hunger strike for justice. The welders and pipe fitters had been lured from their native India to the United States with promises of green cards and good jobs at Signal International’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. Once there, they found themselves held in modern-day forced labor, victims of a human-trafficking scheme under the guise of the H-2B guest worker program. Now, 23 of the workers have been jailed by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Community leaders in Minnesota—including Congressman Keith Ellison and the Rev. Craig Johnson, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—issued a call for the release of 23 workers from India held in the Fargo, N.D., jail by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
