Immigration plan "chains workers"

by Rosalio Muqo

The "more compassionate" immigration system for undocumented 
workers proposed by President George W Bush on January 7 will 
grant corporations greater ability to pit US workers against the 
global work force for domestic jobs, say labour and immigrant 
rights leaders. It will also help businesses further exploit 
undocumented workers.

Bush is proposing a massive temporary worker program that will 
match "willing foreign workers with willing American employers".

The program, which will be administered by the Department of 
Homeland Security, establishes a three-year temporary worker visa 
for which both employed undocumented immigrants and foreign 
workers with job offers can apply. "Participants who do not 
remain employed, who do not follow the rules, or who break the 
law will not be eligible for continued participation and will be 
required to return to their home", Bush said.

But AFL-CIO (peak trade union council) President John Sweeney 
pointed out that the program will "serve large corporations' 
needs over those of immigrant workers and their families". 
Sweeney said the proposal "creates a permanent underclass of 
workers (and) deepens the potential for abuse and exploitation of 
these workers". It would "formalise an even larger class of 
workers accorded only second-tier status in American workplaces 
and will exacerbate the decline in job quality and job security 
for all workers", he said.

Democrat Rep Bob Menendez called the temporary worker program "a 
rotation of human capital, to be used and discarded, with no hope 
of permanently legalising one's status".

Bush said employers "must make every reasonable effort to find an 
American worker for the job at hand". He promised that "the 
government will develop a quick and simple system for employers 
to search for American workers", and said the new temporary 
worker system "should be clear and efficient, so employers are 
able to find workers quickly and simply". Undocumented workers 
will have to pay a "one-time fee" to be eligible for 
consideration. Workers recruited abroad apparently will not have 
to pay a fee.

Labourers Union President Terence O'Sullivan told the Workday 
Minnesota news service that Bush is proposing to "chain a worker 
to an employer and claim to protect human rights". Chaining 
workers to employers, he added, "protects corporations and 
employers but leaves workers themselves vulnerable and beholden 
to those employers for the right to stay here".

The program, said Raul Yzaguirre, President of the National 
Council of La Raza, appears to offer the business community full 
access to the immigrant workers it needs while providing very 
little to the workers themselves. And because these workers would 
be vulnerable during their temporary status and even more 
vulnerable when it expires, "the program would have a negative 
impact on the wages and working conditions for their US-born co-
workers" as well.

The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPLAC) 
said in a statement that Bush's proposal fails to provide a 
reasonable and timely path to lawful permanent residence. "It is 
unrealistic to expect people to come out of the shadows and 
become fully integrated members of our community and economy if 
they know that they will be forced to leave everything behind 
when their period of stay under the program ends", said NAPALC 
member Phil Y Ting.

Bush's temporary labour program has predecessors in the form of 
indentured servitude, contract labour, and coolie labour systems 
of past centuries. The Bracero Program, begun during World War 
II, brought temporary Mexican workers in to augment crop 
harvesting for agribusiness in the Southwest. Business forces 
greatly expanded the program after the war.

Government and business colluded to undermine labour rights of 
citizens, green card holders, braceros and undocumented workers 
with the Bracero Program, pitting all against each other, 
according to Ernesto Galarza, who helped organise the Mexican-
American/Labor alliance that won its repeal in the early '60s.

Galarza's book, Merchants of Labor, describes how the 
bracero workforce grew from 4203 in 1942 to nearly 300,000 in 
1959. Many braceros found that working without documents was more 
advantageous, so as the program grew, so did the number of 
undocumented workers. The government responded with increased 
deportations, which rose from 5,100 in 1942 to over one million 
in 1954 during the racist program the government called 
"Operation Wetback".

The multi-tiered system fostered the continued growth of 
agribusiness over the family farm, prevented successful union 
organising, and sharply reduced the number of citizens in the 
farm labour workforce.

The Bush proposal will create a temporary work program on a scale 
potentially far broader and deeper than the Bracero Program. 
Undocumented workers are found in almost every job description 
that exists, professional, skilled, unskilled, and in every 
region of the country. According to the Bush statement, 
undocumented workers will be eligible to apply for permits for 
the jobs they now have, workers in other countries, perhaps now 
employed by US global corporations, will also be able to seek 
invitation to such jobs.

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