-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 7, 2007 1:37:00 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Corporate Plutocrats and the Underclass
LEGALIZING AN UNDERCLASS
David Bacon
Tom Paine, February 05, 2007
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/02/05/
legalizing_an_underclass.php
Journalist/photographer David Bacon is the author of The Children
of NAFTA.
Oakland, California —Of all the supporters of corporate immigration
reform, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff is the most honest. The
day of the notorious raids at the Swift and Company meatpacking
plants, he told the media the raids would show Congress the need
for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a
temporary-worker program." Bush wants, he said, "a program that
would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they
can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those
workers in a regulated program."
Chertoff is hardly the only voice in D.C. using raids to justify
guest worker programs. Cecilia Muñoz, head of National Council of
La Raza (NCLR), is another. Those deported in December were among
the millions of undocumented workers who came after Congress passed
the last immigration amnesty in 1986. Since legislators at the time
didn't consider people who would come in following years, "perhaps
the most tragic consequences are the terrible human costs of
workplace raids," she mourns. New guest worker programs will give
future migrants legal status, she claims, and protect them from the
migra .
The raids do cause terrible suffering. But Muñoz and other
Washington insiders actually supported bills last year that mandate
the same worksite enforcement Chertoff carries out today. More
raids were a price they were willing to pay (or willing to let
others pay) for the guest worker programs they wanted.
Today, many Congressional leaders—Democrats and Republicans—want to
allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands
of workers a year outside of the U.S. and put them to work here on
temporary visas. Labor schemes like this have a long history. From
1942 to 1964, the Bracero Program recruited temporary immigrants.
They were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on
strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country
to drive down wages. César Chávez, Ernesto Galarza and Bert Corona
all campaigned to get the program repealed.
Advocates of today's programs do everything they can to avoid
association with the bitter "bracero" label. They used "guest
worker" until that name also developed an ill repute. Now they
prefer other euphemisms—"essential workers," or just "new workers."
We don't live in a magical world, however. You can't clean up an
unpleasant reality by renaming it.
Current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain
blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand rights. Anyone who
makes trouble doesn't get rehired to work in the U.S. again. Public
interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back
wages for cheated immigrants. The Department of Labor almost never
decertifies a contractor for this abuse.
Guest workers labor under the employer's thumb. Standing up for a
union or minimum wage is risky. Under current programs, and in the
new Congressional proposals, if workers lose their jobs they must
leave, making deportation a punishment for being unemployed. No one
gets unemployment insurance, disability or workers' compensation
payments. Companies save money and avoid bad publicity by sending
injured workers back home, where healthcare is virtually unavailable.
But Muñoz and others argue that Congress can allow guest workers to
go to court. Our legal system is such a poor protector of workers'
rights today, however, that in 30 percent of all organizing drives,
workers (both citizens and immigrants) are illegally fired, with
virtually no remedies or penalties on employers. Arguing that
lawyers can protect immigrants on temporary work visas is
preposterous. These problems aren't aberrations, curable with legal
fine print.
By their nature, guest worker programs are low-wage schemes,
intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers at a
price they want to pay. Companies don't recruit guest workers so
they can pay them more, but to pay them less.
According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the
American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program,
but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers. "We don't want
the government setting wages," he says. "The market determines wages."
Major Senate sponsors of guest worker bills don't believe the
government should even set a minimum wage for anyone, immigrant or
citizen. John McCain, John Cornyn, James Kyl, Larry Craig and Chuck
Hegel all just voted for an amendment to repeal the federal minimum
wage entirely. Making them responsible for guest worker wages is
putting the fox in charge of the chickens.
And it's not just wages. The schemes create a second tier of
workers with fewer rights and less job security. They have none of
the social benefits U.S. workers won in the New Deal—retirement,
unemployment and disability insurance. Instead of including new
immigrants in these and other social programs, giving them legal
residence and rights, Congress would create a huge workforce
without them. Corporations that have pushed for eliminating these
standards for everyone would be halfway there.
That's why workers, unions and community organizations have opposed
guest worker programs, but also why corporations want them.
Starting in the late 1990s, companies organized a shadowy lobby
group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) which
today encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-
Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Association of Builders and
Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest
worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-
for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional
cover.
The corporate lobby made other inroads as well. John Gay, who heads
the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, is now board chair of
the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington player. NCLR's
list of corporate sponsors includes Wal-Mart and 14 other
multinationals. Even two unions—the Service Employees and UNITE HERE
—supported the Senate guest worker compromise last year.
The question Congress is deciding isn't "what can stop
immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living
outside their countries of origin, nothing can. Migration begins
when people are displaced. In the countries that are the main
sources of migration to the U.S., most migration is caused by
economic dislocation—people can no longer survive as farmers or
workers. Other migrants fled the wars that raged in Central America.
NAFTA, CAFTA and U.S.-sponsored economic reforms, along with U.S.
military intervention, uprooted millions of people, leaving them
little options other than coming north. Corporations like Wal-Mart
and Marriott wrote U.S. trade policy to improve their investment
opportunities abroad. Now they also want guest worker programs to
channel people displaced by those policies into their U.S.
operations. Often those leaving home are among the most skilled and
educated. Their departure makes it even harder for their countries
to progress.
This flow of forced migration may not stop in the near future, but
changing pro-corporate trade policies would reduce the pressure on
people to leave home. Unsurprisingly, that's not on EWIC's agenda.
The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people once
they're here. Other proposals—those from outside the Beltway—would
give immigrants far greater rights and much more equality than
guest worker programs. Congress could, for instance,
• give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already
here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the
chance to come and go—to work, study or take care of family members
in the U.S. or in their home country. They can't be deported if
they lose a job.
• expand the number of green cards available for new migrants,
opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate
those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through
family networks. Making family reunification easier would help them
and strengthen communities.
• allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after
they've been here a few years. The U.S. wouldn't develop the huge
undocumented population it has today.
• stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of
deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that
migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.
• prohibit companies from recruiting outside the U.S. They can
always hire immigrants with green cards here, and green card
holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher
wages.
It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program.
That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants
in Washington must choose whose side they're really on.
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