[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM:
LABOR MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY,
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 24, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-40
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
35-605 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866)512-1800
DC area (202)512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail Stop SSOP,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RIC KELLER, Florida
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DARRELL ISSA, California
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia STEVE KING, Iowa
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TOM FEENEY, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois STEVE KING, Iowa
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California ELTON GALLEGLY, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Chief Counsel
George Fishman, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
MAY 24, 2007
Page
OPENING STATEMENT
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 1
The Honorable Steve King, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Iowa, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration,
Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.. 3
WITNESSES
Mr. Jonathan Hiatt, General Counsel, American Federation of Labor
and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Mr. Fred Feinstein, Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor,
University of Maryland, Representing SEIU and UNITE HERE
Oral Testimony................................................. 26
Prepared Statement............................................. 27
Mr. Michael J. Wilson, International Vice President and Director,
Legislative and Political Action Department, United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW)
Oral Testimony................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 33
Mr. Bruce Goldstein, Executive Director, Farmworker Justice, on
behalf of Mr. Marcos Camacho, General Counsel, United Farm
Workers of America
Oral Testimony................................................. 36
Prepared Statement............................................. 38
Mr. Vernon Briggs, Ph.D., Professor of Industrial and Labor
Relations, Cornell University
Oral Testimony................................................. 40
Prepared Statement............................................. 42
Mr. Greg Serbon, State Director, Indiana Federation for
Immigration Reform and Enforcement
Oral Testimony................................................. 48
Prepared Statement............................................. 49
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative
in Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border
Security, and International Law................................ 2
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan,
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, and Member, Subcommittee
on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 5
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
``The AFL-CIO's Model for `Future Flow': Foreign Workers Must
Have Full Rights,'' submitted by Jonathan Hiatt, General
Counsel, American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO)........................................ 70
``Q&As on AFL-CIO's Immigration Policy,'' submitted by Jonathan
Hiatt, General Counsel, American Federation of Labor & Congress
of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).......................... 73
``AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement: Responsible Reform of
Immigration Laws Must Protect Working Conditions for all
Workers in the U.S.,'' submitted by Jonathan Hiatt, General
Counsel, American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO)........................................ 78
``Fundamental Worker Protections in Foreign Temporary Worker
Programs'' by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, May
2007........................................................... 82
``Graft Mars the Recruitment of Mexican Guest Workers'' by
Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times, May 24, 2007, page 3..... 84
``Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States,''
by Mary Bauer, the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2007........... 87
Prepared Statement of Terence M. O'Sullivan, Laborers'
International Union of North America (LIUNA) General President,
May 24, 2007................................................... 137
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM: LABOR MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVES
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:15 a.m., in
Room 2142, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe
Lofgren (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Lofgren, Gutierrez, Berman,
Jackson Lee, Delahunt, Sanchez, Ellison, Conyers, and Gallegly.
Staff Present: Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Chief Counsel; J. Traci
Hong, David Shahoulian, Majority Counsel; George Fishman,
Minority Counsel; and Benjamin Staub, Professional Staff
Member.
Ms. Lofgren. The hearing of the Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law will come to order.
I would like to welcome the Immigration Subcommittee
Members, our witnesses, and members of the public who are here
today for the subcommittee's 13th hearing on comprehensive
immigration reform.
Our series of hearings on comprehensive immigration reform
began at Ellis Island where we examined the need for
comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders, to
address economic and demographic concerns; and there we
reviewed our Nation's rich immigrant history. We have studied
immigration reform from 1986 and 1996 in the effort to avoid
the mistakes of the past. We have considered the problems with
and have proposed solutions for our current employment and
worksite verification system. In light of the recent Senate
immigration agreement to eliminate family priorities in
immigration and replace those priorities with a completely new
point system, we have studied the contributions of family
immigrants to America and various immigration point systems
used around the world. We have explored the costs of
immigration on our States and localities, and last week we had
two hearings to explore the importance of immigrant integration
and the future of undocumented immigrant students in the United
States.
This week we have turned our attention to organizations and
individuals who represent the vast majority of individuals who
will be directly affected by comprehensive immigration reform.
This past Tuesday we heard from faith-based and immigrant
communities. And today we will explore the positions and
viewpoints of labor unions, especially in light of the recent
action in the Senate that yielded an immigration agreement
being debated there this week.
The legislative proposals for comprehensive immigration
reform currently being considered in the Senate would allow for
the temporary entry of hundreds of thousands of new foreign
workers into the U.S. labor force. As such, U.S. workers and
labor unions who represent those workers have a stake in the
debate in which to ensure that any enacted legislation
addresses the issue of safeguarding the welfare of U.S.
workers.
The subcommittee has held two hearings, one called by the
majority and one by the minority, on the impact of foreign
workers on the Nation's economy and workforce. The
subcommittee, however, has not yet been afforded the
opportunity to hear from you. Perhaps more importantly, the
subcommittee has not had the opportunity to review the history
of temporary worker programs and the state of current labor
protections within the Immigration and Nationality Act. A
better understanding of current labor protections and the
effect of foreign workers in different industries will help the
subcommittee in its consideration of comprehensive immigration
reform.
So we thank you, distinguished witnesses, for being here
today to help us sort through what is a complex and extremely
important issue.
I would now like to recognize our Ranking Member,
Congressman King, for his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International
Law
I would like to welcome the Immigration Subcommittee Members, our
witnesses, and members of the public to the Subcommittee's thirteenth
hearing on comprehensive immigration reform.
Our series of hearings on comprehensive immigration reform began at
Ellis Island, where we examined the need for comprehensive immigration
reform to secure our borders, to address economic and demographic
concerns, and there we reviewed our nation's rich immigrant history. We
have studied immigration reform from 1986 and 1996 in an effort to
avoid the mistakes of the past. We've considered the problems with and
proposed solutions for our current employment and worksite verification
system. In light of the recent Senate immigration agreement to
eliminate family priorities in immigration and replace those priorities
with a completely new and untested point system, we studied the
contributions of family immigrants to America and various immigration
point systems used around the world. We have explored the costs of
immigration on our states and localities. Last week, we had two
hearings to explore the importance of immigrant integration and the
future of undocumented immigrant students in the United States.
This week we turn our attention to organizations and individuals
who represent the vast majority of individuals who will be directly
affected by comprehensive immigration reform.
This past Tuesday, we heard from the faith based and immigrant
communities. Today, we will explore the positions and viewpoints of
labor unions, especially in light of recent action in the Senate
yielding an immigration agreement being debated in the Senate this
week.
The legislative proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that
is currently being considered in the Senate would allow for the
temporary entry of hundreds of thousands of new foreign workers into
the U.S. labor force. As such, U.S. workers and the labor unions that
represent those workers have a stake in the debate and wish to ensure
that any enacted legislation addresses the issue of safeguarding the
welfare of U.S. workers.
The Subcommittee has held two hearings, one called by the majority
and one by the minority, on the impact of foreign workers on the
nation's economy and workforce.
The Subcommittee, however, has not yet been afforded the
opportunity to hear from labor unions. Perhaps more importantly, the
Subcommittee has not had the opportunity to review the history of
temporary worker programs or the state of current labor protections
within the Immigration and Nationality Act. A better understanding of
current labor protections and of the effect of foreign workers in
different industries will help the Subcommittee in its consideration of
comprehensive immigration reform.
Thank you again to our distinguished witnesses for being here today
to help us sort through what is a complex and very important issue.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank you for this
hearing today.
I thank the witnesses for appearing before this panel, and
I understand, to a significant degree, the hoops that some of
you have to jump through, from perhaps missing a red-eye flight
to getting an early wake-up call. And I think the public does
not appreciate the sacrifice that you all make for an
opportunity to be able to speak some words into the public
record. What we need to do here is listen to that input and
evaluate it. So let me start off by quoting Cornell University
Professor Vernon Briggs.
We do listen when you come here, Professor.
In one of those statements, it says--this is a quote--
``Samuel Gompers was chosen as President of the new American
Federation of Labor in 1886, and with the exception of 1 year,
he held that office until he died 38 years later, in 1924.
Gompers was himself a Jewish immigrant from England, as were
many of the members and leaders of the unions affiliated with
the AFL. From his earlier days of involvement in his own craft
union, the Cigar Makers, Gompers became intimately aware of
immigrants' adverse effects on its members' wages and
employment opportunities. Indeed, it was his own union that in
1872 introduced in San Francisco the usage of the union label
to distinguish for the consumers the best cigars produced by
workers employed under a union agreement from those manmade by
nonunion immigrant workers.''
That was an original view on where the song came from that
Al Gore grew up singing, ``look for the union label.''
``Thus, despite his own immigrant roots, Gompers recognized
that organized labor's first responsibility was to protect the
economic well-being of workers and not immigrants per se, and
that is when there was a conflict in their respective
interests,'' close quote.
What a difference 100 years make. In fact, what a
difference 20 or 21 years make. American unions were some of
the strongest supporters of employers' sanctions that were
enacted as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of
1986. Yet now, unions are fairly unanimously seeking amnesty
for 12 to 20 or more million illegal immigrants in America.
I hope to learn more at this hearing about why America's
labor movement has reversed course and no longer believes that
mass levels of immigration hurt rank-and-file members. We will
hear from a rank-and-file member about what he thinks about the
decisions of union leaders. When there is an excess of supply,
of labor, employers are able to cut wages. Illegal immigrants
and large-scale temporary worker programs can reduce wages and
take jobs from both citizens and legal immigrants. The illegal
immigration largely impacts low-skilled Americans, and guest
worker programs can impact higher-skilled Americans, but let us
focus on low-skilled Americans who would be most severely
impacted by amnesty.
A study by Harvard economist George Borjas shows that cheap
immigrant labor has reduced by 7.4 percent the wages of
American workers performing low-skilled jobs. A report by the
Center for Immigration Studies concludes that immigration may
reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled
occupation by $1,915 per year, on average.
Contrary to the assertion that Americans will not take low-
skilled jobs, Americans in fact do these jobs every day. Some
claim that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans
will not do, but when an illegal immigrant finds a job here,
that does not mean that no Americans will take the job. In
fact, 79 percent of all service workers are native-born, as are
68 percent of all workers in jobs requiring no more than a high
school education. Illegal immigrants make up only 17 percent of
workers in building cleaning and maintenance occupations, 14
percent of private household workers, 13 percent of
accommodation industry workers; they make up only 13 percent of
food manufacturing and industry workers, 12 percent of the
workers in construction and extraction occupations, and only 11
percent of workers in food preparation and serving occupations
and 8 percent of workers in production occupations.
We must put citizens and legal immigrants first. Americans
need these jobs: 17 million adult citizens do not have a high
school degree, 1.3 million are unemployed, and 6.8 million have
given up looking for jobs. The percentage of 16- to 19-year-
olds holding jobs in the United States is now at its lowest
point since 1948. And of those who are simply not in the
workforce, of working age, there are 69 million Americans to
recruit these 7 million to replace the illegal workers from.
Rather than legalize illegal immigrants, we should enforce the
laws on the books. That will reduce illegal immigration,
increase wages, and make many jobs more attractive to American
workers.
The result of a large low-skilled immigrant workforce is
that the most vulnerable Americans must compete with those
illegal immigrants for jobs. Illegal immigrants deprive
American citizens and legal immigrants of the same American
dream. That is wrong and regrettable.
I look forward to some enlightenment on how it is that the
unions in this country can think that you could suspend the law
of supply and demand with regard to that most valuable
commodity of labor, and flood the marketplace and expect that
you can keep wages and benefits up for the workers who you are
pledged to protect.
With that, Madam Chairman, I would yield back the balance
of my time.
The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Lofgren. Other Members of the Committee, by unanimous
consent, will put any opening statements they have in the
record, and we will reserve the opportunity for the Chairman of
the Committee and for the Ranking Member of the full Committee,
when they arrive, to deliver their statements.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,
Refugees, Border Security, and International Law
We have heard in two prior hearings about the effect of immigration
on U.S. workers. Before we proceed, I would like to summarize those
hearings.
Some economists say immigration has a great effect; some say it is
minimal. Some say that immigration is wonderful, while their opponents
seem to claim that every immigration program is an amnesty that hurts
American workers. Some say that immigration reform is necessary because
it is in keeping with our Civil Rights traditions, while others doubt
that new immigrant communities will ever assimilate, and in fact might
spell the end for America.
We have heard some new voices cry out for protection of African-
American jobs. But those voices are not necessarily ones we hear on
other critical issues like full employment, education, and the jailing
of our young men. It bears repeating: the legitimate interest in
protecting American workers must not be used illegitimately to drive
wedges among ethnic groups. We have seem the advertisements and heard
the example that jobs in one African-American community were now going
to immigrants. But which immigrants? Haitians and Jamaicans. I and
others have fought hard to ensure that immigration policies are fair to
Caribbeans and Africans; driving wedges among the various Black
communities in the name of derailing immigration reform is not in the
spirit of our work or of the Civil Rights movement.
For those who profess concern about American jobs, you need to be
identifying pragmatic solutions, not just crying ``amnesty'' and
opposing the hard and necessary challenge of immigration reform. We
need more serious and innovative proposals such as that put forth by
Ms. Jackson-Lee to use immigration fees to fund job training programs.
This proposal takes us out of the think tanks and into the real world.
That's why today's hearing is so important. Today, we have a chance
to hear about some of the real-world solutions to the need to protect
workers from exploitation and abuse, from the very entities who exist
to give workers a voice. I am proud to welcome the representatives from
organized labor today.
Much of the debate over immigration has centered on guestworker
programs and legalization, and I look forward to hearing the panel's
thoughts on these issues.
First, the undocumented: There are about 7.2 million unauthorized
workers, representing about 4.9% of the labor force. In certain
industries, there is a higher share 14% in food manufacturing, 13% of
agricultural workers, and 12% of construction workers. Thus, many
workers in industries represented by our panel are undocumented and
unprotected. Bringing them out of the shadows can enable these unions
to perform their traditional roles of protecting and organizing the
workers. We have heard that unions were critical players in
assimilating immigrants into American society. How best can we
structure a program that will meet the needs of both the economy and
the workers?
And then there is the issue of the guestworker programs. All agree
that such programs should not create a permanent underclass. I
understand that there is some disagreement on how best to avoid that,
and I am interested in hearing the various viewpoints.
Some important questions occur when thinking about guestworker
programs:
How can we ensure that there are meaningful protections against
worker exploitation, including mistreatment all the way to the
level of involuntary servitude?
What kind of protections should be put in place to guard
against false promises or abuse by labor brokers as well as bad
apple employers?
What should the role of organized labor be with these workers?
We already have guestworker programs--how can they be improved?
Does it make sense--whether for the worker, the employer, or
our country--to have arbitrary rules requiring workers to go
home or to skip a year of employment?
Is restricting guestworkers' ability to come in with family a
positive restriction, or will it create isolation and even
encourage illegal immigration?
Should there be a path toward eventual legal status or
citizenship? Should there be some credit toward such programs?
What kind of safeguards could be built in to ensure that these
workers are not being used to undercut organizing efforts or to
drive down wages?
Again, I welcome the panelists, and look forward to today's
discussion.
Ms. Lofgren. In the interest of proceeding to our
witnesses, I am happy to introduce you all. We have a
distinguished panel of witnesses today.
I am first pleased to extend our welcome to Jonathan Hiatt,
General Counsel of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Hiatt has served in this
capacity since his appointment in 1995 by the Federation's
President, John Sweeney. Prior to his work as General Counsel,
Mr. Hiatt served for 8 years as the General Counsel of the
Service Employees International Union. He directs the AFL-CIO's
lawyers' coordinating committee, and he sits on several boards
of directors, including those of the National Employment Law
Project and the D.C. Employment Justice Center. He earned his
bachelor's degree from Harvard College and his law degree in my
area, at the University of California-Berkeley, Boalt Hall
School of Law.
Next I am pleased to introduce Fred Feinstein, Senior
Fellow and Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland,
today representing SEIU and UNITE HERE. Mr. Feinstein formerly
worked as a General Counsel at the National Labor Relations
Board and prior to his work at the Labor Relations Board. Mr.
Feinstein served as the Chief Labor Counsel and Staff Director
of the House's Labor Management Relations Subcommittee for a
total of 17 years. He was a lead staffer on the Family Medical
Leave Act and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification
Act. Among his many other distinguished teaching posts, he was
an elementary public school teacher in East Harlem, New York.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and his
law degree from Rutgers Law School.
I would like next to welcome Michael Wilson, the
Legislative Political Affairs Director of the United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union, the UFCW. Mr. Wilson
has served in this capacity at the UFCW since 2005, having
served as the union's chief lobbyist for 6 years. Within former
President Clinton's administration, he served as the Chief of
Staff for the Assistant Secretary of Labor of the Employment
Standards Administration and as a Senior Legislative Officer in
the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at
the Labor Department. In the early years of his career, he
served as a legislative and press assistant for former
Congressman Charles Hayes of Illinois.
We have a substitution. Unfortunately, Marcos Camacho, the
General Counsel for the United Farm Workers of America, had a
disruption on his flight, and so he did not land at Dulles this
morning. Bruce Goldstein, the Executive Director of the Farm
Worker Justice Group, is here in his stead to submit his
statement. Bruce Goldstein joined the Farm Worker Justice Group
as a staff attorney in 1988, and then he served as co-Executive
Director starting in September 1995, when he was named
Executive Director in July of 2005. He received his bachelor's
degree in 1977 from the New York State School of Industrial and
Labor Relations at Cornell University and his law degree from
Washington University in St. Louis. He has worked at the
National Labor Relations Board; at a legal services office in
East St. Louis, Illinois; and in private law practice--
concentrating in labor law, personal injury, and civil rights.
We thank you for your attendance.
Finally, I would like to welcome our minority party's
witnesses, the first of whom is Dr. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus
Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell. A
prolific university scholar, Dr. Briggs has served as an
advisor to a host of Federal agencies, among them the
Department of Labor; the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare; and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He has served as
a board member of the Center for Immigration Studies since
1987. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of
Maryland and his master's and doctorate degrees from Michigan
State University. This is Dr. Briggs' second appearance before
this subcommittee on the topic of comprehensive immigration
reform. We welcome you back.
We also have Greg Serbon with us, the State Director of the
Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement. Mr.
Serbon was a member of the Teamsters Union, Local 738, in
Chicago, Illinois from 1981 to 1987. He has been a member of
the Pipefitters Local 597 in Chicago from 1988 to the present,
and since 2004 he has directed Indiana's Federation for
Immigration Reform and Enforcement.
As I believe all of you have been advised, your entire
statements will be made part of our official record. We would
ask that you summarize your testimony in about 5 minutes. There
are little machines on the desk. When the light turns yellow,
it means you have only 1 minute to go, and when the light turns
red, it means you have actually used 5 minutes. This always
comes as a surprise because the time just runs, but we would
ask that you try and wrap up when the time is up.
I am just very pleased to be here. I was thinking, as I was
looking at you, that my grandfather, who was an immigrant, was
a Teamster his whole life, and my father was Recording
Secretary of his Local 888 in California, and my mom's dad was
a machinist, and my grandmother was a machinist. What you talk
about today means a great deal to me, personally, and I think
to the country generally.
So let us begin with you, Mr. Hiatt.
TESTIMONY OF JONATHAN HIATT, GENERAL COUNSEL, AMERICAN
FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS
(AFL-CIO)
Mr. Hiatt. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and Members
of the Committee. Thank you again for this opportunity. We have
been invited to share the labor movement's perspective, so I
intend to focus on the areas of immigration policy that have
the greatest impact on workers.
The AFL-CIO has called on Congress to legalize the status
of the growing undocumented immigrant workforce, which as long
as it exists in the shadows is negatively impacting all
workers, foreign- and U.S.-born. We have also strongly opposed
the perpetuation of the inherently abusive temporary guest
worker programs. We have advanced this position both because it
is morally just and humane and because current policies have
brought about a two-tiered workforce consisting of one class of
permanent U.S. residents with full workplace rights and another
of undocumented and temporary guest workers with few workplace
protections of any kind. These policies have offered employers
a ready pool of exploitable labor in this country and depressed
wages, benefits, health and safety protections, and other labor
standards for everyone else. Let me offer you a couple of
examples as to how this occurs.
In 2005, a group of temporary worker program construction
workers in North Carolina who had been raising health and
safety concerns received a flyer at work instructing them to
attend a mandatory health and safety meeting. The flyer was
printed on OSHA letterhead, but when they arrived at the
meeting, there were no OSHA officials present. Instead, ICE
officials were waiting. They arrested more than 20 workers and
placed them into deportation proceedings.
More recently, a group of forestry workers in Virginia who
had been brought into the country under the H-2B guest worker
program, filed a complaint alleging violations of minimum wage
and overtime laws as well as State claims relating to their
housing conditions. They had been forced to live in a warehouse
surrounded by barbed wire. They were locked into the warehouse
at night. They had substantial portions of their paychecks
deducted to cover for this housing. During the plaintiffs'
depositions, the police, together with the employer, called the
DHS, whose agents arrived at the facility about 2 hours later.
Ultimately, the plaintiffs were able to convince DHS that this
was a labor dispute in which it should not be involved, and the
agents left. But in both of these examples, you can imagine the
chilling effect of the employer's actions that was felt by all
of the workers.
These scenarios are not uncommon. Undocumented and guest
worker status have given employers a powerful tool to use in
their attempts to repress worker rights. A recent report by
Human Rights Watch, that we put into the record, that focused
on the meatpacking industry, shows that employers commonly take
advantage of workers' fear of drawing attention to their
status, just to keep workers in abusive conditions that violate
basic human and labor rights.
So the labor movement recognizes that comprehensive
immigration reform is long overdue, but we fear that the
legislative proposals that are pending before Congress do not
address the root problems and would only make matters worse.
Instead, we believe that the answer to the immigration crisis
is to reform immigration law in a way that places worker rights
at the forefront and would remove the economic incentives to
exploit immigrant workers that are currently driving illegal
migration. Our approach has three core principles:
One, the law has to provide a fair and effective mechanism
by which the roughly 12 million undocumented workers in the
country today can regularize their status. Two, foreign workers
in the future must come into the U.S. with full and equal
access to workplace protections through the permanent visa
system. Three, enforcement of labor laws must go hand in hand
with enforcement of immigration laws.
All three of these principles are addressed at some length
in my written testimony, as are the fundamental worker
protections that we believe must be built into any temporary
worker program, whether the existing H programs or any other
version.
So let me just conclude with a brief explanation about our
position on future flow, itself.
We recognize that even with the legalization of the current
undocumented population, there will continue to be a need from
time to time, in discrete sectors and in varying locations, for
workers beyond those available and willing to work at
prevailing wages and working conditions domestically. We do not
agree, however, that such needs, especially for permanent work
as opposed to seasonal or short-term jobs, should be met
through the guest worker programs or what are now being called
by some ``temporary worker visa programs.''
Proponents of these programs claim that we need guest
workers to do the jobs that Americans will not do. However, the
reality is that there are no jobs that Americans will not do if
the wages and working conditions are adequate. Of the BLS' 473
occupational titles, only four today are even majority foreign-
born, and even in the low-wage sectors--hospitality,
janitorial, landscaping, poultry, for example--a great majority
of the staffing nationwide is by U.S. workers.
Until now, guest worker programs have been limited to
filling temporal shortages. The pending bills would represent
an enormous policy change, giving the business community an
enormous windfall--the right for the first time to fill
permanent, year-round jobs with exploitable temporary workers.
The result would be to pit foreign workers against U.S.
workers, an even further depression in wages and working
conditions.
So our solution to the acknowledged need for future flow is
to restructure the current permanent employment visa category
in a way that reflects real market conditions and guarantees
full labor rights for future workers. Rather than setting an
arbitrary cap or one based on political compromise, we propose
the number be adjusted to reflect real, independently
determined employer needs for long-term shortages, with workers
admitted with a green card and with permanent status from the
outset, that there is no justification for bringing them in
with anything less than the same set of workplace rights and
protections that apply to all workers.
Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mr. Hiatt.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hiatt follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jonathan P. Hiatt
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Feinstein.
TESTIMONY OF FRED FEINSTEIN, SENIOR FELLOW AND VISITING
PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, REPRESENTING SEIU AND UNITE
HERE
Mr. Feinstein. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is a
pleasure to be here today.
My name is Fred Feinstein, and I am testifying today on
behalf of SEIU and UNITE HERE--two unions that together
represent more than 2.2 million workers, a significant
percentage of which are immigrants. Along with each of the
union witnesses here today, SEIU and UNITE HERE believe that
our system of immigration is fundamentally broken. The status
quo is unfair to immigrant workers and unfair to all workers in
this country.
Comprehensive immigration reform is a critical challenge we
face as our country goes through one of its most rapid economic
transformations in its history. As many have said to this
Committee, reform has to be comprehensive if it is to succeed.
SEIU and UNITE HERE support a fair, practical, and tough
proposal that will bring an estimated 12 million undocumented
individuals out of the shadows, reunite families, secure our
borders, and create a legal channel for new workers to enter
our country and join our civic society.
Reform must start with a workable plan to legalize the
undocumented population. It is in all of our interests to
eliminate the vulnerability of this population of workers
because it is undermining the working conditions of all
workers. Provisions that place serious barriers to legalization
like cumbersome and risky, so-called ``touch-back
requirements,'' will discourage people from coming forward, and
the problems of an undocumented population will continue.
A workable legalization program is part of what is needed
to end the flourishing underground economy that is not only
exploiting workers, both immigrant- and native-born, but is
draining resources from our communities across the country.
Those who claim it would be wrong to provide a means for
legalization of the undocumented worker conveniently overlook
that it is employers, consumers, homeowners, building owners,
and many others who have benefited from the hard work of the
undocumented worker. The people who oppose legalization never
acknowledge that, demanding stiff sanctions for the immigrant
while supporting, quote, ``amnesty'' for those who have
benefited from their hard work.
Once we address the past failures of our immigration
system, we have to move forward to implement the program that
is fair to all workers. It is essential that fundamental labor
protections be in place if a new worker program is to succeed.
While there are some differences in some aspects of immigration
reform, I believe that all unions agree that adequate labor
protections are of the utmost importance. In my remaining time,
I will describe the labor protections that we believe are
essential to the success of immigration reform.
First, workers lawfully entering this country must be
provided the opportunity to remain in this country. Some who
come here to work will want to return home after a period of
time, but that should be a choice, not a mandate. Workers who
know they will be forbidden to stay do not have the same
interests and concerns of their coworkers. Their interests are
short term and immediate. With a temporary status, they do not
have the same stake in upholding and enforcing workplace
standards. They do not have the same motivation or ability to
support and build decent workplace conditions, and they can do
little when unscrupulous employers take advantage of them in
ways that undermine the broader interests of all workers.
History has taught us that temporary worker programs create a
second-class status for immigrant workers, to the detriment of
all workers, and all such programs have failed in the past.
A second fundamental labor protection is that immigrant
workers have the same rights and mobility as all workers. When
they do not, it again creates the opportunity for exploitation
by the unscrupulous employer at the expense of workers and
employers who play by the rules. Responsible employers are
placed at a competitive disadvantage when competitors can drive
down labor costs by taking advantage of workers who lack
adequate labor protections. Likewise, when an employee cannot
leave an abusive employer, all workers and responsible
employers suffer. Immigration law must not provide any employer
with these kinds of opportunities.
Another critical element to protecting the rights of all
workers is assuring that no more workers than needed are
authorized to enter this country. By developing accurate
measures of labor market needs, the appropriate number for the
future flow of workers should be set at a level that first and
foremost does not create a downward pressure on wages or
working conditions. It is a number that should not be arbitrary
or inflexible but be based on reliable assessments that new
workers will not undermine the working conditions of both
immigrant- and native-born workers.
Finally, there must be adequate enforcement of labor
protections. One of the historic problems of our immigration
system has been the failure to enforce labor protections.
Enforcement mechanisms and penalties that effectively deter
violations are essential in assuring that labor protections are
more than hollow promises.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Feinstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Fred Feinstein
Madam Chairwoman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Fred Feinstein. I am testifying on behalf of the Service
Employees International Union and UNITE/HERE. I am also a senior fellow
and visiting professor at the University of Maryland. I served as
General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994 through
1999, as well as Chief Counsel of the Labor Management Relations
Subcommittee in the House of Representatives where I worked from 1977
to 1994.
With 1.8 million members, the Service Employees International Union
is America's largest union of health care workers, property services
workers, and the second largest union of public services workers. SEIU
is also the largest union of immigrants, representing thousands of U.S.
immigrants from diverse backgrounds and places of origin. Many of these
members perform some of our nation's most needed, yet under valued work
that is essential to our economy, families and communities.
UNITE/HERE's 440,000 members work in the hotel, restaurant, food
service, laundry, garment and apparel industries. Immigrants make up a
large percentage of its membership. In 2003 the UNITE/HERE and SEIU
sponsored the historic Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, which for the
first time knit together labor, immigrant advocates, clergy, and
community organizations in the struggle for comprehensive immigration
reform. These unions lead the dramatic reversal of the AFL-CIO policy
in 2000 repudiating employer sanction and calling for repeal and
support of comprehensive immigration reform.
Comprehensive immigration reform is a critical challenge we face as
our economy goes through the most rapid transformation in history. To
that end, SEIU and UNITE/HERE have long advocated for reforms that
would fix our broken immigration system so that we may bring order out
of chaos, protect America's working communities, and restore fairness.
today's broken immigration system and its impact on workers
We have seen first hand how the system is broken. It's broken
because hard working people across the country have to live in the
shadows, afraid of what lies around the corner. Employers, consumers
and numerous others benefit significantly from their presence, but they
remain vulnerable, exploitable and subject to harsh sanction at any
minute. They live with the constant fear that they will be separated
from families, loved ones, friends, neighbors and the communities they
have helped to build in many cases for decades. The immigration system
is broken because vulnerable immigrant workers are exploited in ways
that are not only inhumane and unjust but that also undermine the
conditions faced by all workers, especially those in low wage
industries. The status quo is unfair to the immigrant and unfair to all
workers.
As Congress debates the nuts and blots of reform legislation, let
us not forget the real people this debate touches. Ercilia Sandoval,
from El Salvador is an active member of SEIU and works as a janitor for
GCA Services in Houston Texas. Ercilia is a mother of two young girls,
and came to the U.S. under temporary protected status. She works the
night shift so that she can care for her children during the day. But,
like so many janitors, the $8/ per hour salary is often not enough to
make ends meet. Life got even harder for Ercilia last year when she
found out that she had rapidly advancing breast cancer. Without access
to health insurance, Ercilia had to wait months until she was able to
receive chemotherapy treatment. Today, she is continuing the fight for
her life, for her family, and for her rights. In fact, she is leading
her local union's fight for health care access for janitors. Ercilia
works hard, plays by the rules and wants a better life for her
children--as do all workers.
The two unions have countless success stories of immigrant workers
who are working hard everyday, paying taxes, and joining with their
union brothers and sister to improve the wages, hours and working
conditions. Many become union stewards and leaders, helping to ensure
workers rights in the workplace, those who become U.S. citizens are
leaders in civic life and become active in political campaigns. Take,
Alba Vasquez, an immigrant from Uruguay, who works as at Madison Square
Garden in New York City. In addition to her 3p.m. to 11 p.m. shift at
Madison Square Garden, Alba worked a second job during the day so that
she could afford to put her four children through Catholic school. Now
that her children have grown, Alba has embraced her rights as a U.S.
citizen and as a voter. She is active in her local union's campaign to
fight for economic development that will guarantee god jobs, affordable
housing, and a leader in the campaign for health care for all. There
are millions more Alba's in the U.S. today that are awaiting the
opportunity to more fully enrich our nation. As they wait, however,
their lives are too often driven by fear and unnecessary hardship.
Under today's current broken system, both native and immigrant
workers are under attack. Allowing unscrupulous employers hire
undocumented workers cheats all workers out of fair wages, deny basic
labor rights, and fire--or deport--anyone who seeks speaks up or
asserts their labor rights. The exploitation of undocumented workers
chips away at hard-earned labor rights, and drives down wages for all
U.S. workers. At a time when wages for working Americans are stagnant
and opportunities to rise up the economic ladder are disappearing, this
shadowy culture of exploitation is particularly unacceptable.
Until we fix the root causes for the broken system, U.S.
communities will continue to experience disruptive raids, family
separation, and unnecessary economic hardship. While enforcement is
critical to comprehensive reform and U.S. security, seemingly arbitrary
raids on working communities will not achieve our large goals of fixing
the broken system. Instead, an increasing number of work place raids
like those at Swift and New Bedford will create more chaos and family
tragedies that hurt communities. We need a more workable approach that
is inline with reality and matches our economic needs and our values.
the comprehensive solution:
Last November, voters sent a strong message to elected leaders that
Americans want Congress to fix our nation's problems, including our
failed immigration system. Candidates who ran on anti-immigrant, anti-
immigration, and enforcement-only messages lost their races because
voters saw through the political rhetoric, not solving the problem.
Voters know that deporting 12 million individuals is unrealistic and
morally repugnant. Americans understand that we need to make our system
match our Nation's economic goals, and then we need to make sure it's
fair, sustainable, and enforceable.
To that end, SEIU and UNITE/HERE support a fair, practical and
tough proposal that will bring out of the shadows an estimated 12
million undocumented individuals, reunite families, secure our borders
and create a legal channel for new workers to enter our economy, have
workplace protections, and join our civic society. Hard working, tax-
paying immigrants who are living in this country should be given the
opportunity to come forward, pay a fine, and earn legal status and a
path toward citizenship. This will enhance border security and buttress
our economy.
SEIU and UNITE/HERE are committed to the following provisions being
included in this year's comprehensive immigration reform legislation:
Legalization--In order to end illegal immigration as we know it, we
must enact laws that ensure that every job in this country is held by
an individual legally authorized to work in this country. Congress
should not be satisfied with a program that is less than comprehensive.
We must face reality that long-term undocumented individuals, but
otherwise law-abiding workers will not leave the country voluntarily.
We must all agree that if legalization is less than comprehensive
and includes hurdles that are sure to deter people from participating;
undocumented workers will continue to fuel an underground economy, with
negative impacts on all workers, employers, and communities. We must
put an end to a system in which employers avoid payroll taxes, deprive
communities of other revenues and receive an unfair advantage over law-
abiding competitors by violating labor laws. All of us as taxpayers
pick up the tab when our broken immigration system allows employers to
cheat our communities out of needed revenues. The benefits of a
comprehensive and workable legalization program are clear: high levels
of participation in the legalization program put significant pressure
on employer's to comply with withholding requirements and labor
protections as it becomes more difficult for unscrupulous employers to
prosper in an underground economy.
Because a goal of any legalization program should be to legalize as
many people as possible, it is counterproductive to include provisions
that would erect permanent barriers to people achieving lawful status.
Any bill that places serious burdens on legalization such as requiring
people to leave the county or placing insurmountable obstacles on the
path to legalization for some people is unworkable. Again, the
legalization provisions must be expansive to ensure as many
undocumented as possible participate, not make ineligible the very
people who need to come out of the shadows.
We are committed to shrinking the undocumented population, so that
our law enforcement officials can concentrate their resources on those
who would do us harm. Rounding up dishwashers, meat cutters, factory
workers, mothers and fathers is not a good or productive use of our law
enforcement resources.
Those who claim it would be wrong to provide a means for
legalization of the undocumented conveniently overlook that it is
employers, consumers, homeowners, building owners and many others who
have benefited from the hard work of undocumented workers. We all
benefit when they clean our offices and hotel rooms, care for our
children, and tend to our family members when they are sick or in need.
The people who oppose immigration reform never acknowledge that they
are demanding stiff sanctions for the immigrant while supporting
``amnesty'' for those who have benefited from their hard work.
New worker program--SEIU and UNITE/HERE recognize the need for new
workers in the low-wage sector of our expanding economy. However, any
new worker program must include worker protections including:
portability of visas so that workers can change jobs, the right to join
unions and have full labor rights, the right of immigrants to bring
their families with them, and the ability to self-petition for
permanent residency and citizenship. Visas should not be tied to
employers who can threaten workers with deportation if not compliant.
We must craft a new worker program that will include accurate
mechanisms to determine the labor market need for workers. We must
transform the current illegal flow into a program with legal channels
that lead to an increased number of permanent work authorizations.
Finally, any new worker program should include sufficient enforcement
resources to ensure the effective implementation of labor rights of
both U.S. citizens and new worker visa holders.
Looking at the question of labor protections in more detail, there
are several kinds of labor protections that are needed to assure
immigrant workers are not exploited and can't be used to undermine the
working conditions of all workers. While we have not always agreed on
every aspect of what is needed in immigration reform legislation, on
the question of labor protections the labor movement speaks with one
voice.
One of the most important labor protections is that workers
lawfully entering this country to live and work must be provided the
opportunity to remain in the country. Workers who know they will only
be permitted to remain in the country for a short time do not have the
same interests and concerns of the rest of the workforce. Their
interests are short term and immediate and employers can exploit this
status in ways that undermine the broader interests of all workers.
When people are restricted to temporary status, they don't have the
same stake in upholding and enforcing workplace standards as other
workers. They don't have the same motivation to support and build the
decent workplace conditions, but rather are confined as second-class
participants in the workforce. They are more vulnerable to the kinds of
exploitation that undermine our workforce today. They can fall prey to
the unscrupulous employer who can manipulate their tenuous ties to the
broader community. History has taught us that temporary worker programs
create a second-class status for immigrant workers that undermines the
conditions of all workers and are bound to fail.
We cannot tolerate a repeat of the failed ``guest worker'' programs
that are temporary in nature. If workers are good enough to be brought
to our country to do our least desirable work, they should be given the
option to put down roots and become full participants in our nation and
our civic society. If they are good enough to care for our children and
aged, cut our grass, and clean our toilets, they are good enough to be
given the option to become permanent residents and eventually citizens.
Immigrant workers must also have the same rights under employment
laws as any other worker.
When an immigrant worker does not have the same rights under labor
law as all workers it creates an opportunity for exploitation by the
unscrupulous employer at the expense workers and employers who play by
the rules. Responsible employers can be undercut and placed at a
competitive disadvantage when unscrupulous competitors drive down labor
costs by exploiting vulnerable immigrant workers who lack adequate
labor protections. Immigration law must not provide the unscrupulous
employer this opportunity.
Another critical element of protecting the rights of workers is
assuring the number of workers permitted to enter the country is not
greater than what is necessary to meet well defined labor market needs.
The goal is to set a number at a level that first and foremost does not
create a downward pressure on wages or working conditions. The number
should not be arbitrary or inflexible, but should be based on a
reliable assessment that new workers will not undermine wage or working
conditions. New workers should be admitted to this country if and only
if it is determined they will not undermines the wages and working
conditions of all the workers in this country, both immigrant and
native born.
Finally, there must be adequate enforcement of labor protections.
One of the historic problems of our immigration laws has been the
failure to enforce the labor protections and standards. There must be
effective enforcement mechanisms in place and adequate penalties to
deter violations of the law. Employment law protections must be more
than hollow promises.
Other Necessary Requirements for Comprehensive Reform--SEIU and
UNITE/HERE were instrumental in reversing the labor movement's position
supporting employer sanctions. We did this because the experiment of
employer sanctions imposed by the Immigration Reform and Control Act
(IRCA) in 1986 to close the job market to illegal aliens backfired and
only harmed workers. UNITE/HERE and SEIU have had first hand experience
when organizing workers of employers calling Immigration and Custom
Enforcement to break union strikes and organizing campaigns. We have
worked diligently to craft an alternative to supplement employer
sanctions in the negotiations on comprehensive immigration reform.
Comprehensive reform must include:
Vigorous Labor and Civil Rights law enforcement--Employer sanctions
must be supplemented with vigorous labor law enforcement. All workers--
U.S. born and immigrant--must have the ability to assert their rights
under local, state and federal labor and civil rights laws. They must
be able to freely join unions and have private right of action to
ensure their rights are preserved and protected. Immigration reform
legislation must encourage vigorous labor and civil rights enforcement
provisions by both governmental and non-governmental agencies, with
these agencies given the necessary resources to ensure that employers
who seek competitive advantages by exploiting workers will face
significant fines and be barred from future immigrant worker programs.
Our childcare providers, food servers and dishwashers, home health
care aides, hotel workers, janitors and thousands of other service
sector workers toil hard each and every day to feed and make a better
life for their families. SEIU and UNITE/HERE members are working on
payrolls and paying taxes through employer withholding. Reform must
help ensure that all workers will be paid legally, under local, state
and federal law, with proper withholding for employment taxes, social
security, eligibility for unemployment and worker compensation
programs. Employers must be required to meet their tax and employment
payroll obligations, and not allowed to misclassify workers as
independent contractors to avoid payroll obligations, Social Security,
unemployment compensation, and Medicare taxes. When employers are
allowed to pay workers in cash, under-the-table, or as
``contractors''--everyone loses--businesses, communities, workers and
taxpayers.
Keeping families together--SEIU and UNITE/HERE strongly support all
efforts to eliminate the family backlog and increase the number of
visas available to reunite families. If our economy demands new
workers, those workers should be able to bring their families with
them, and family members should be work authorized. If low-wage workers
are to support themselves, they must be allowed to work. When workers
are temporary and not allowed to bring family members with them they
can become a drain on their communities. By keeping families, together
workers are full participants in their communities and workplaces.
Electronic Employment Verification System--We recognize it is
likely that Congress will include some form of an EEVS in immigration
reform. We believe it is important that any EEVS system have sufficient
safeguards to protect against worker abuse. This would include fixing
deficiencies in the Electronic Verification pilot program before it is
expanded to cover all workers. The system should only apply to new
hires and there should be stringent protections to guard against using
the system for discriminatory purposes. There must also be effective
guarantees of due process rights to protect against erroneous
determinations, adequate privacy and identity theft protections and
workable and fair documentation requirements.
Due Process Protections--It is critical that enforcement measures
do not eviscerate due process protections and civil liberties.
Likewise, SEIU and UNITE/HERE will not support any legislation that
empowers and encourages state and local law enforcement officials to
enforce civil violations of federal immigration laws. Such proposals
would irreparably harm the critical relationships law enforcement
officials have built in order to fight crime and interact with
immigrant neighborhoods and communities
conclusion:
SEIU and UNITE/HERE are committed to passing comprehensive
immigration reform, and continues to work in partnership with immigrant
advocates, business, religious and labor leaders who recognize the need
for a ``break the mold'' reform package. We have rededicated our
efforts and the resources of SEIU and UNITE/HERE to make reform a
reality.
Ms. Lofren. Mr. Wilson.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL J. WILSON, INTERNATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT
AND DIRECTOR, LEGISLATIVE AND POLITICAL ACTION DEPARTMENT,
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION (UFCW)
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chair, and distinguished
Members of the subcommittee.
I am Michael J. Wilson, and I am with the United Food and
Commercial Workers Union. UFCW is the largest private-sector
union in North America and is one of the largest unions of
immigrant workers of the United States, with more than 200,000
new immigrants as members. We are the primary worker
representative in industries that are major employers of
immigrant workers--meatpacking, food processing and poultry--
and we have a 100-year history of fighting on behalf of packing
and processing workers.
Without objection, I would like to enter my testimony and
highlight an enhanced written statement.
The workers we represent know----
Ms. Lofgren. Without objection.
Mr. Wilson [continuing]. The need for immigration reform.
Some of them are undocumented, but many more want to bring
their families here to join them in the ``land of the free and
the home of the brave.''
A good first step would be appropriate border enhancements
to prevent illegal immigration, combined with a fair path to
earned legalization for those who are here, employed, are part
of the community, and would otherwise obey the law and pay a
reasonable fine. Unfortunately, if combined with a massive
Bracero-like guest worker program with little or no hope for an
adjustment of status, it would be a bad first step or, as the
Sunday New York Times described the Senate compromise,
``awful.'' the Times' editorial called it--and I quote--``the
creation of a system of modern peonage within our borders.''
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently issued a report
entitled, ``Close to Slavery: Guest Worker Programs in the
United States.'' It documents the specific situations in the
existing H-2 programs where workers are underpaid, where there
are workplace injuries without recourse, where there are even
cases of workers owing money to their employers after having
served as guest workers. Here is a specific example:
Sam Kane Beef, one of the country's largest independently
owned beef slaughter plants, located about 5 miles northwest of
Corpus Christi, employs about 600 people; at one time, 121 were
Mexican guest workers. They were told that the pay would be
good. They were led to believe that the working conditions
would not be overly difficult. They were also assured that they
would have, quote, ``the same rights as American workers.''
Yet, when a UFCW representative spoke with these workers
after they had been on the job for less than 3 weeks, they
related that they had been misled. Injuries were a major
concern. They claimed that there was no medical personnel on
the plant premises. The workers had no health insurance. If a
worker became injured, he had to go to the management in person
to request a day off without pay. The workers were forced to
live in substandard company housing. They were docked hours and
denied benefits even after working 11 to 12 hours a day.
These workers were paid $6.65 an hour, approximately half
the industry wage for the same work. When the President says
that these are the jobs that Americans will not do, this is
exactly what we mean when we say that these are jobs that
Americans will not do for those wages, nor should anyone.
It is peonage; it is close to slavery. These are strong
words but are the real world of lives of guest workers in
America. The fact is that guest worker programs have created an
underclass of workers who are afforded neither full rights on
the job, full participation in the community, nor full
protection at the workplace. This creates a culture in which
people believe that a person's race or national origin
relegates him to a life of low-paying/no future jobs. It also
discourages domestic workers from those lines of work; thus
segregating the workforce.
Finally, when guest workers choose to exert workplace
rights--the right to a safe workplace or the right to form a
union--they risk losing their jobs or being deported. They face
the same challenges that any worker who speaks up confronts,
with the notable difference that they are temporary guest
workers. This amounts to compulsory consent to exploitation,
and it lowers working standards for all working people.
The sad fact is that our Nation is currently incapable of
enforcing our Nation's most basic labor laws and workplace
protections. Our union regularly witnesses employers who fire
and discipline workers, whether they are immigrant-, native-
born, or guest workers because they were injured on the job or
they dared support union representation. Every time one of
these firings takes place--and they take place frequently--the
employer violates Federal law with little or no consequence for
doing so. To suggest that a new guest worker program can be
constructed with adequate workplace protections is disingenuous
and flies in the face of history and current practices.
Just as it is entirely appropriate for Congress to insist
that enhanced border protection be in place prior to finalizing
the legalization component of immigration reform, the Congress
should insist that prior to new and expanded guest worker
programs, there must be reform of the current programs.
Comprehensive immigration reform should be based on our
Nation's values of equal opportunity, responsibility, and
justice. A new guest worker program, without significant reform
of existing programs, undermines any reform effort before we
even get started.
That concludes my statement, and I would be glad to answer
any questions.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael J. Wilson
Good morning. My name is Michael J. Wilson and I am representing
the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). UFCW
is the largest private sector union in North America--and it is one of
the largest unions of new immigrant workers in the United States with
more than 200,000 new immigrants as members. I am an International Vice
President of the union and Director of the Legislative and Political
Action Department.
We are the primary worker representative in industries that are
major employers of immigrant workers--meatpacking, food processing, and
poultry--and have a hundred-year history of fighting for safe working
conditions and good wages on behalf of packing and processing workers.
Immigrants and their families come to this country prepared to
work, pay taxes, and to abide by our laws and rules. They contribute
more than $300 billion to our economy annually.(American Immigration
Law Foundation, Spring 2002; UCLA, 2001.\1\ In fact, each new immigrant
contributes roughly $1,200.\2\ They play a vital role in our economy
and are tighly woven into our nation's social fabric.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Comprehensive Migration Policy Reform in North America: The
Key to Sustainable and Equitable Economic Integration,'' (University of
California, Los Angeles), August 29, 2001.
\2\ American Immigration Law Foundation, Spring 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roughly 25 million immigrants, from nearly every country in the
world, are living and working in the U.S., yet our country effectively
has no immigration policy. In fact, our current approach is geared more
to 19th and early 20th century immigration patterns than to the
realities of the 21st century, fostering rampant abuse and exploitation
of both immigrants and U.S. citizens.
Unscrupulous companies take advantage of the lack of a consistent
system to recruit and lure immigrant workers across borders with little
or no regard for federal law or workplace regulations. The employment
verification system is inaccurate, inefficient, and easily manipulated
by employers eager to take advantage of cheap foreign labor.
The mass and random enforcement activities that occur as a result--
such as those which took place in the Swift & Company meat processing
plants in December--lead to the disruption of families, the economy,
and our communities. During the raids, ICE agents violated the agency's
own policies and procedures. The raids were designed and executed as
political theatre--which is all they could be, given that the U.S. has
no systematic or effective immigration system. In the process, more
than 10,000 workers, both immigrant and non-immigrant, were
criminalized simply for showing up to do their job, and subjected to
gross violations of their human and civil rights. Worksite raids,
family disruption, and the criminalization of work--do not constitute
an effective immigration system.
In some economic sectors, American businesses need immigrant
workers. But despite the various provisions for the free flow of
capital and goods that are built into U.S. International Trade Policy,
insufficient consideration has been given to the transnational flow of
people that has become part and parcel of the 21st century global
economy.
For example, 13 years of NAFTA have resulted in the loss of
millions of domestic jobs for American workers. At the same time, in
Mexico, real wages have declined significantly, millions of farmers
have been dislocated, and millions more consigned to poverty, fueling
the labor flight into the U.S.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Scott, Robert E and David Ratner. (2005, July 25). ``NAFTA's
cautionary tale: Recent history suggests CAFTA could lead to further
U.S. job displacement.'' The Economic Policy Institute.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The result of our outdated immigration system--exacerbated by trade
policies that are effectively devoid of enforceable labor protections--
is an unauthorized U.S. population of an estimated 11.5 to 12 million
as of March 2006.\4\ As a result, immigrants and native-born American
workers in underpaid economic sectors are experiencing workplace abuse
and the erosion of wages and working conditions. Our country's archaic
immigration policy--incapable of dealing with 21st century immigration
patterns and economic realities--is undermining the very ideals and
values our country was built on, and serving neither business nor
workers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Passel, Jeffrey S. (2006, March 7). ``Size and Characteristics
of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.'' The Pew Hispanic
Center. < http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=61>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some have suggested that a new guestworker visa program would be
the legislative solution to satisfy the international supply and
national demand for labor without letting workers ``sneak in.'' Some
have described these programs as ``break the mold'' or ``different''
than prior efforts. Such proposals fail to acknowledge the disastrous
effects of past and present guestworker programs and the obstacles that
would impede the creation of new and improved temporary worker plans.
The post-World War II Bracero program was synonymous with worker
abuse. Modern versions of the same--such as the H2-B--have had similar
negative effects. In 1997 the U.S. Government Accountability Office
reported that modern H-2A workers ``are unlikely to complain about
worker protection violations, such as the three-quarter guarantee,
fearing they will lose their jobs or will not be accepted by the
employer or association for future employment.'' \5\ The Southern
Poverty Law Center has said that our existing guestworker programs
``can be viewed as a modern-day system of indentured servitude.'' Even
Ways and Means Chairman Rangel recently described our country's
experience with guestworker programs as ``. . . the closest thing I've
ever seen to slavery.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Changes Could Improve Services to Employers and Better
Protect Workers.'' GAO/HEHS 98-20, pp 60-61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guestworkers, especially in low-wage economic sectors, face
exploitation at nearly every step from securing visas to working in
sweatshop conditions. We've seen the effects of today's guestworker
programs in our own industries--meatpacking and food processing--
sectors that new guestworker legislation will likely effect.
For example, Sam Kane is one of the country's largest independently
owned beef slaughter and processing plants. It is located about five
miles northwest of downtown Corpus Christi and employs approximately
600 people--121 of whom at one time were Mexican guestworkers. They
were told that the pay would be ``good'' and were led to believe that
the working conditions would not be overly difficult. They were also
assured that they would have the ``same rights as American workers.''
Yet when a UFCW representative spoke with some of these ``guests''
after they'd been on the job for less than three weeks, they related
that they had been misled and their promised rights severely curtailed.
Injuries became of major concern for the workers. They claimed that
there was no nurse or clinic on the plant premises, and they had no
health insurance. If a worker became sick, he or she had to go to the
plant in person to request a day off without pay. Forced to live in
substandard company housing, the workers were docked hours and denied
benefits even after working 11-12 hours a day.
This kind of gross inhumanity and abuse in sectors where
guestworkers are employed is thoroughly documented in a recent report
by the Southern Poverty Law Center landmark report, ``Close to Slavery;
Guestworker Programs in the United States.
These workers were paid $6.65 an hour approximately half of the
industry wage for the same work. When the President says that these are
jobs that Americans won't do, this is exactly what we mean when we say
that these are jobs that Americans won't do at these wages. In 2007, no
one should do this work at these wages, and the government should not
help employers keep wages down.
The facts are incontrovertible: guestworker programs create an
underclass of workers and engender racial and other discriminatory
attitudes toward individuals who are afforded neither full rights on
the job, full participation at the workplace, or full connection to the
community. This creates a culture in which people believe that a
person's race, color, or national origin relegates them to a life of
low-paying, no-future jobs. It also discourages domestic workers from
those lines of work, segregating the workforce. Finally, when
guestworkers choose to exert workplace rights--the right to a safe and
healthy workplace or the right to form a union--they risk losing their
jobs or being deported. They face the same employment dangers that any
worker who speaks up confronts--you or I or any of your constituents,
with a notable difference--they are temporary guestworkers. In effect,
this amounts to compulsory consent to abuse and exploitation, and
lowers working standards for all working people.
In 2005 the Brennan Center for Justice reported that there has been
a ``significant reduction in the government's capacity to ensure that
employers are complying with the most basic workplace laws.'' \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ ``Trends in Wage and Hour Enforcement by the U.S. Department of
Labor, 1975-2004.'' Brennan Center for Justice, Economic Policy Brief,
No. 3, September 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sad fact is that our nation is currently incapable of enforcing
our country's most basic labor laws and workplace protections. The
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has regularly
witnessed employers who fire and discipline workers--whether immigrant,
native-born, or a ``guest''--because they were injured on the job; or
they spoke out in support of union representation; or they sought the
correction of a workplace safety and health hazard. Every time one of
these of firings take place--and they take place frequently--the
employer violates federal law with little or no consequence for doing
so.
It is more than naive to suggest that a new guestworker program can
be constructed with adequate workplace protections--it is disingenuous.
The outcome is sadly foreseeable: no matter how many abstract
protections get written into a guestworker program, the approach will
inherently provide employers with the opportunity to abuse and exploit
workers, especially in low-wage jobs. A notable exception is AgJobs,
which was negotiated between the employers and the union representing
the workers, and will be enshrined in law.
American democracy works because it is inclusive. But all
guestworker programs permanently exclude individuals who contribute to
our economic well-being from participating in our democratic process.
America's immigration system requires comprehensive reform that serves
everyone who lives and works in America.
The following are the UFCW immigration reform principles which we
believe are necessary to protect workers:
A Path to Citizenship: Nearly 12 million immigrants
provide their labor and talent to American employers. They make
significant contributions to their communities, but are
afforded neither labor rights nor due process protections. We
must create a real pathway to citizenship for immigrant workers
who have established themselves in the community, who are
employed, and who have otherwise not broken the law.
End Worksite Immigration Enforcement: Worksite
programs like ``Basic Pilot'' and the ICE Mutual Agreement
between Government and Employers (IMAGE) are riddled with
problems, fail to adequately protect workers from
discrimination, exploitation, and harassment, and fail as a
substitute for a systematic approach to a fair and orderly
immigration process.
Meaningful Employer Punishments for Immigration and
Labor Law Violations: Too often, when companies cannot export
jobs in search of cheap wages and weak labor laws, they import
workers to create a domestic pool of exploitable labor. The law
must criminalize employers who recruit undocumented workers
from abroad or otherwise circumvent immigration policies, and
provide meaningful, enforceable penalties for companies that
violate health, safety, and labor laws.
No New Guestworker or Temporary Worker Programs:
Guestworker programs allow employers to turn permanent, full-
time, family-supporting jobs into temporary, go-nowhere jobs
that exploit immigrants and native-born workers alike. When
guestworkers choose to exert workplace rights, they risk losing
their jobs or being deported. Guestworker programs create an
underclass of workers and engender racial and other
discriminatory attitudes toward individuals who are afforded
neither full rights on the job nor participation in our
society. In addition, existing guestworker programs should be
reformed so that they include real worker protections--
including the right to self-petition for legalization and the
freedom to change jobs--and penalties for employers who break
the law. Reform of existing programs should be a requisite
prior to the creation of broad new programs. Anything less will
inevitably lead to the kinds of problems and scandals which
will shame us all.
Revise the Permanent Employment-Based Visa System:
Instead of short-term ``guestworker'' visas, labor shortages
should be filled with workers with full rights, a path to
permanent residence, and, if they choose, citizenship. The
number of visas available should respond to actual,
demonstrated labor shortages. U.S. employers should be required
to hire U.S. workers first, and wage rate requirements should
be high enough to make jobs attractive to U.S. workers.
Wage and Working Condition Protection for All
Workers: All workers, including future immigrant workers,
should have the same workplace protections as U.S. citizens,
including fair wages, a safe workplace, and the right to join a
union. Immigrant workers who report employer violations should
be ensured whistleblower protections with special protections
that include extending their immigration status and work
authorization during the complaint process.
The interests and lives of America's working families cannot be
compromised. A single-minded immigration policy that disregards legal,
labor, and workplace protections and only serves to provide employers
with workers will inevitably result in economic and social calamity.
Workers need to be at the heart of an effective and comprehensive
reform of our immigration laws. Meaningful immigration reform should
begin with the enforcement of basic workplace protections already on
the books. Anything less, especially the enactment of a massive new
guestworker program will exacerbate the systemic problems of our
current system hurting all workers, their families, and their
communities and robbing America of its fundamental values of inclusion
and justice.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Goldstein.
TESTIMONY OF BRUCE GOLDSTEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FARMWORKER
JUSTICE, ON BEHALF OF MR. MARCOS CAMACHO, GENERAL COUNSEL,
UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you to the Chair and to the Members of
this Committee for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the
United Farm Workers regarding the labor movement and
immigration policy.
Agricultural workers have confronted difficulties in
immigration policy since the founding of this Nation. Our
government policies and enforcement efforts have often
contributed to an imbalance in power that has subjected farm
workers to poor wages and working conditions. The Bracero
program became known for its abusive treatment of Mexican
workers, despite the existence of protections for wages and
benefits, and was finally ended in 1964. When the farm workers
became free to demand better treatment, Cesar Chavez and the
United Farm Workers provided a vehicle to dramatically improve
the status and treatment of farm workers in this country.
Now we have the H-2A guest worker program, which was
created at the same time as the Bracero program, and it is
quite similar to it. Generally, our guest worker programs have
tied workers to a particular employer. If the job ends, the
worker may not look for another job and must leave the United
States immediately. The guest worker who wishes for a visa the
next year must hope that the employer will request one because
the employers control access to visas. Such workers are often
fearful of deportation or of not being hired in the following
year, and are therefore reluctant to demand improvements. They
work very hard for low wages. U.S. workers often recognize that
they are not wanted by employers who use the guest worker
system. Currently, there are about 50,000 H-2A jobs approved
annually out of an agricultural workforce of about 2.5 million.
There are many abuses under the H-2A program, ranging from
very minor to very serious trafficking in human beings.
Unfortunately, our government has rarely enforced the
protections in the H-2A program. Today, on page 3 of The New
York Times, there is a report about the visas and the H-2A
program, including the murder of an organizer of the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, while organizing in Mexico.
In recent years, the United Farm Workers Union and the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee have been asked by guest workers
from several nations to help them improve conditions at their
jobs in Washington State, Hawaii, and North Carolina. We
believe that unionization is the best hope that guest workers
have for better treatment and the best hope that the government
has of removing the H-2A program's reputation for abuse.
Today, we have reached a situation in agriculture that
demands urgent action. Between 53 and 70 percent of farm
workers are undocumented. In some crops, it is 80 percent. Many
employers now hire farm labor contractors in the hope that they
can shield themselves from liability for hiring undocumented
workers in violation of the immigration law and from liability
for labor law violations. In many cases, due to inadequate
enforcement of labor laws, employers take advantage of
undocumented workers by subjecting them to illegal wages and
working conditions.
When the majority of workers in an economic sector are
living in the shadows of society, something must be done. The
current situation is not good for farm workers who want to be
able to work legally and earn a decent living to support their
families. It is not good for employers who want to hire people
without worrying that they will be raided by the Immigration
Service at the peak of their harvest of their perishable fruits
and vegetables. It is not good for the government either.
The United Farm Workers Union recognized several years ago
that the status quo needed to be remedied. We prevented
legislation from being passed that would have transformed
agriculture into a harsh guest worker program with no path to
citizenship, but we were unable to pass the kind of legislation
that we preferred. With the help of Representative Berman and
other Members of Congress, we entered into arduous negotiations
with key leaders of agricultural employers in the United States
and other Members of the Congress. The result was AgJOBS. The
``AgJOBS,'' the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and
Security Act, would provide agricultural employers and the
Nation with a legal, stable, productive workforce while
ensuring that basic labor protections would apply to farm
workers. AgJOBS has two parts.
First, AgJOBS would create an earned adjustment program,
allowing many undocumented farm workers to obtain temporary
resident status based on past work experience with the
possibility of becoming permanent residents through continued
agricultural work. Second, it would revise the existing H-2A
program. The Earned Legalization program certainly should not
be called ``amnesty.'' This is a tough program. Farm work is
dangerous, difficult, seasonal, and low-paid. This truly will
be an earned legalization. Applicants will have to work 3 to 5
additional more years in agriculture to earn their green cards.
To conclude, we recommend the following: We encourage you
to pass AgJOBS. Congress and the Administration should also be
vigilant about abuses under guest worker programs. Strong
enforcement of labor protections is needed. Congress also needs
to adopt protections against abuses associated with foreign
labor contracting. The U.S. Government should be looking to the
recruitment systems abroad that bring workers into the United
States.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Camacho follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marcos Camacho
Thank you to the Chair and the Members of this Committee for the
opportunity to testify on behalf of the United Farm Workers regarding
the labor movement and immigration policy. I am Marcos Camacho, an
attorney in Bakersfield, California, and the General Counsel of the
United Farm Workers, the labor union founded by Cesar Chavez.
Agricultural workers have confronted difficulties in immigration
policy since the founding of this nation. Our government policies and
enforcement efforts have often contributed to an imbalance in power
that has subjected farmworkers to poor wages and working conditions.
The Bracero guestworker program became known for its abusive
treatment of Mexican workers, despite the existence of protections for
wages and benefits, and was finally ended in 1964. When, the
farmworkers finally became free to demand better treatment, Cesar
Chavez and the United Farm Workers provided a vehicle to dramatically
improve the status and treatment of farmworkers in this country.
More recently, the H-2A guestworker program often has provided
agricultural employers with workers whose restricted, nonimmigrant
status ensures that they will not challenge unfair or illegal conduct.
Generally, our guestworker programs have tied workers to a particular
employer; if the job ends, the worker may not look for another job and
must leave the United States immediately. The guestworker who wishes
for a visa in the next year must hope that the employer will request
one, because the employers control access to visas. Such workers are
often fearful of deportation or not being hired in the following year,
and are therefore reluctant to demand improvements. They work very hard
for low wages. U.S. workers often recognize that they are not wanted by
the employers who use the guestworker system. Currently, there are
about 50,000 H-2A jobs approved annually, out of an agricultural work
force of 2.5 million.
There are many abuses under the H-2A program ranging from minor to
very serious trafficking in human beings. Unfortunately, our government
has rarely enforced the protections in the H-2A program. In recent
years, the United Farm Workers and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee
have been asked by guestworkers from several nationsto help them
improve conditions at their jobs in Washington State, Hawaii and North
Carolina. We believe that unionization is the best hope that
guestworkers have for better treatment and the best hope the government
has of removing the H-2A program's reputation for abuse.
Today, we have reached a situation in agriculture that demands
urgent action. There are about 2.5 million farmworkers in this country,
not including their family members. More than 80% of them are foreign-
born, mostly but not all from Mexico. Virtually all of the newest
entrants to the farm labor force lack authorized immigration status.
The helpful reports from the National Agricultural Workers Survey by
the U.S. Department of Labor state that about 53% of farmworkers are
undocumented. But most observers believe the figure is 60% or 70%, and
much higher in specific locations. Many employers now hire farm labor
contractors in the hope that they can shield themselves from liability
for hiring undocumented workers in violation of our immigration law and
from liability for labor law violations. The labor contractors compete
against one another by offering to do a job for less money, and the
cut-throat competition means that the workers must take lower wages.
When one labor contractor is prosecuted for violating labor laws, he is
easily replaced. Our current immigration system is causing employers to
attempt to evade responsibility for their employees, while undocumented
workers are too fearful of being deported to demand changes. In many
cases, due to inadequate enforcement of labor laws, employers take
advantage of undocumented workers by subjecting them to illegal wages
and working conditions.
When the majority of workers in an economic sector are living in
the shadows of society something must be done. The current situation is
not good for farmworkers who want to be able to work legally and earn a
decent living to support their families. It is not good for employers
who want to hire people without worrying that they will be raided by
the immigration service at the peak of the harvest of their perishable
fruits and vegetables. It is not good for the government, which needs
to know who is working in our economy and living among us. But it is no
answer to say we will deport them and start again. The growers need
these experienced workers to cultivate and harvest their crops. In
fact, many growers contend that there are labor shortages in some areas
because undocumented workers are too fearful of immigration raids to
come to the open fields.
The United Farm Workers recognized several years ago that the
status quo needed to be remedied. We also recognized that some of our
long-held beliefs would need to be modified if we were to achieve any
sort of reform. During the late 1990's, we strenuously and successfully
opposed efforts in the House and Senate by agricultural employers to
weaken H-2A protections and procedures and transform most farmworkers
into vulnerable guestworkers with no path to citizenship. Our
successful opposition led to a stalemate since we did not have the
legislative support needed to enact our ideas about immigration and
labor reform.
With the help of our good friend, Rep. Howard Berman, and other
members of Congress, we entered into arduous negotiations with key
leaders of the agricultural employers in the United States and other
members of Congress, particularly Senator Larry Craig, Senator Edward
Kennedy, and Rep. Chris Cannon. In 2000, we reached agreement on the
Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, or
``AgJOBS.'' AgJOBS has undergone several revisions over the years to
build greater support for passage. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is now a
strong supporter of AgJOBS. We remain strong partners with agricultural
employers to win passage of this important legislation despite many
other differences between us. In 2006, the Senate included AgJOBS in
the comprehensive immigration reform it passed. We are now seeking to
pass AgJOBS as part of comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. We
have been working with the White House and several Senators to bring
AgJOBS to a conclusion.
AgJOBS would provide agricultural employers and the nation with a
legal, stable, productive workforce while ensuring that basic labor
protections would apply to farmworkers. AgJOBS has two parts. First
AgJOBS would create an ``earned adjustment'' program, allowing many
undocumented farmworkers to obtain temporary resident status based on
past work experience with the possibility of becoming permanent
residents through continued agricultural work. Second, it would revise
the existing H-2A agricultural guestworker program.
The earned legalization program certainly should not be called
``amnesty.'' It is a difficult two-step process. The applicants for
earned legalization will have to show that they have worked at least
150 days in U.S. agriculture during the past two years, and then must
work at least 150 days per year in each of three years or at least 100
days per year in each of five years. Farmworkers will also have to show
that they have not been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanors.
Spouses and minor children of the farmworkers will be eligible for a
temporary status, too.
If they fulfill their obligations, they will be granted a green
card for permanent resident status. They will have to pay substantial
fees and fines at both steps. (Under the compromise worked out with the
White House, farmworkers also will have to learn English, demonstrate
that they have paid taxes during their prospective work period, return
to their homeland to file the application for a green card with a U.S.
consulate in their home country, and wait for the green card for 3 to 5
more years until backlogs in immigration applications have been
cleared.). We expect that roughly 800,000 farmworkers will be eligible
for this program, although such predictions are mere guesses. Through
this multiyear process, the United States will have a stable, legal
farm labor force that is highly productive.
This is a tough program. Farm work is dangerous, difficult,
seasonal and low-paid. This truly will be an earned legalization.
AgJOBS also would revise the H-2A guestworker program. We feel that
we made painful concessions to achieve this compromise. The program's
application process will be streamlined to become a ``labor
attestation'' program similar to the H-1B program, rather than the
current ``labor certification'' program. This change reduces paperwork
for employers and limits the government's oversight of the employer's
application. AgJOBS would retain both the ``prevailing wage'' and
``adverse effect wage rates,'' but would effectively lower the H-2A
wage rates by about $1.00 per year (to the 2003 adverse effect wage
rates, which are issued by state), and freeze them for three years. The
Government Accountability Office and a special commission would make
recommendations to Congress about the wage rates within 3 years. If
Congress has not acted within 3 years, then the wage rates will be
adjusted by the previous years' inflation rate. In addition, for the
first time, farmworkers would have a right to file a federal lawsuit to
enforce their H-2A job terms. AgJOBS also would allow some flexibility
in the minimum wages and benefits when the workers at an H-2A employer
are represented by a bona fide labor union under a collective
bargaining agreement.
We believe that AgJOBS is a reasonable compromise under the
circumstances. To conclude, we recommend the following: (1) We
encourage you to pass AgJOBS. (2) Congress and the Administration
should be vigilant about abuses under guestworker programs. Strong
enforcement of the labor protections for guestworkers will prevent
guestworkers from being exploited, prevent the wages and working
conditions of United States workers from being undermined, and will
take away the incentive that employers have to hire guestworkers rather
than U.S. workers, including those who would earn legal immigration
status under the AgJOBS earned legalization program. (3) Congress needs
to adopt protections against abuses associated with foreign labor
contracting. The U.S. Government is refusing to look at the abuses that
occur during the recruitment of guestworkers in the foreign country.
Yet, those abuses abroad, including payment of high recruitment fees,
result in mistreatment of guestworkers on the job in the U.S., because
the guestworkers must work to the limits of human endurance and avoid
deportation at all costs to pay back those fees. The labor contractors'
interest in such recruitment fees may have led to the murder earlier
this year in Monterrey, Mexico, of Santiago Rafael Cruz, who was
helping Mexican citizens employed as guestworker for North Carolina
growers under a collective bargaining agreement with the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO. (4) We also ask you to recognize that
the best protection workers--both U.S. and foreign--have at an employer
that participates in a guestworker program is a labor union. Government
policy should promote collective bargaining to reduce abuses under
guestworker programs and give workers a meaningful voice at work.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Committee on
these important and timely issues.
Ms. Lofgren. That is just notifying us that we are going
into session in 15 minutes, not that we have votes now. Thank
goodness.
Dr. Briggs.
TESTIMONY OF VERNON BRIGGS, Ph.D., PROFESSOR OF INDUSTRIAL AND
LABOR RELATIONS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Mr. Briggs. Thank you very much.
With the revival of mass immigration since 1965 and with
Congress seemingly poised to move the Nation into an era of
massive immigration, the impact of immigration policy on the
labor market has once again become of critical importance to
the Nation's labor movement. Immigration affects the size, the
skill distribution, the composition, and the geographic
distribution of the Nation's labor force. Therefore it impacts
local wages and incomes and employment in local, regional, and
national labor markets.
The labor movement must have a voice in immigration policy,
a big voice. It is a dilemma. It can either favor restrictions
and tight enforcement of immigration laws, and in doing so it
risks alienating the growing immigrant population and component
of the labor force. If it supports expansionary policies, and
lax enforcement, it risks harming the American labor force that
is its actual base. And when I use ``American labor force,'' I
mean the native-born; I mean the permanent resident aliens; and
I mean the naturalized citizens; the whole labor force, that
is, the American labor force. It cannot be supportive of both.
You cannot have it both ways.
Prior to 1990, organized labor always sided with the best
interests of the American labor force, even though it was
founded by immigrants. Most importantly, many of the leaders
were immigrants. From 1860 until 1990, labor supported every
effort to regulate immigration in the Nation's history. Every
law that was passed had the fingerprint of labor on it.
Samuel Gompers, the first President of the American
Federation of Labor in America, the movement's greatest labor
leader, said in his autobiography that organized labor was the
first group in 1892 to recognize the importance of regulating
immigration in the best interests of American workers, and
acted to do accordingly. Also in his autobiography he says
immigration, in all of its most fundamental aspects, is a labor
issue. Fundamentally, it is a labor issue because all of them,
no matter how they are coming in, will work, and so will most
of their relatives, and so it is a labor issue.
Even the famous labor leader A. Philip Randolph, a labor
leader and civil rights leader who led the march in Washington
here in 1963, stated in the 1920's that the Nation was
suffering from ``immigration indigestion.'' It needed
restrictive immigration policies. He supported it. He even
advocated zero immigration.
All of the research on the labor market has shown that
those positions of labor in the past years were justified. The
eras of mass immigration did depress wages. They did spread
poverty. They were a cause of unemployment, of overcrowding in
cities and of all the rest of it, mass unemployment.
Well, since 1990, there has been a shift in the organized
labor position. It has begun to favor amnesty. Some strong
parts of the labor movement have supported either reform or
expansion of guest worker programs. It has accepted a ``chain
migration'' agenda and has picked up the immigrant agenda, the
immigrant rhetoric, and has demonized critics of those
policies. It has taken to ignoring research findings about the
adverse impacts of immigration on low-wage workers.
The real imperative of immigration reform should get
illegal immigrants out of the labor force. Then there would not
be a dilemma for organized labor, and if government were to do
its job and actually enforce the laws, we would not even be
here today discussing this issue. Until then, a choice must be
made. I feel it has been a mistake for the organized labor to
abandon its pre-1990's role where it supported the policies
which were in the best interests of American worker are always
first, always first, and you have to make a choice. Always
first, as it did before the 1990's. Why?
Because if mass immigration continues to be unregulated, it
will be impossible for unions to improve wages and hours and
working conditions for working people and especially, low-
skilled workers. The labor market will continue to be flooded.
Unions cannot defy market pressures. Workers will pay dues, but
they will not get much out of their union participation.
Secondly, support for an immigrant agenda will alienate
large portions of the labor force who are adversely affected by
labor's revised stance and who are adversely affected by the
presence of the massive infusion of illegal immigrants, amnesty
recipients, chain migration, guest workers, and all the rest of
it that now organized labor, in part, seems to be supporting.
They will not support labor. The people who will be hurt will
be justified in that conclusion.
Finally, it raises the question that the labor movement
will lose the moral support of the general public. And I quote
John Mitchell's, from the United Mine Workers, famous statement
to this effect that labor has always benefited from the idea
that, whether or not people belong to unions or not, they
always knew the labor movement had in its heart the best
interest of American workers, first and foremost. That is the
real danger.
So, consequently, I would conclude by simply saying that
what is bad economics for working people cannot be good
politics.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Dr. Briggs.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Briggs follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vernon M. Briggs Jr.
Over its long history, few issues have caused the caused the
American labor movement more agony than has the issue of immigration.
It is ironic this is the case since most adult immigrants directly join
the labor force as do eventually most of their immediate family
members. But precisely because immigration affects the size, skill
composition and geographical distribution of the nation's labor force,
it also influences local, regional and national labor market
conditions. Hence, organized labor can never ignore the public policies
that determine immigration trends.
In the process, however, organized labor is confronted with a
dilemma. If it seeks to place restrictions on immigration as well as to
press for serious enforcement of its terms, the labor movement risks
alienating itself from those immigrants who do enter (legally or
illegally) and do find jobs which may make it difficult to organize
them. If, on the other hand, they support permissive or expansionary
immigration admission policies and/or lax enforcement against violators
of their terms, the labor force is inflated and the ensuing market
conditions make it more difficult for unions to win economic gains for
their existing membership and to organize the unorganized. The main
reason most workers join unions in the United States is, after all, is
because they believe unions can improve and protect their economic
well-being (i.e., their wages, hours of work, and working conditions).
It also is implied that if organized labor were to become an advocate
for immigrant causes (e.g., support for guest worker programs; the non-
enforcement of employer sanctions against hiring illegal immigrant
workers; or favoring mass amnesties that reward those who have
illegally entered the country and are illegally employed), such
positions would be adverse to the best economic interests of the vast
majority of American workers who are legally eligible to work but who
do not belong to unions. These legal American workers (i.e., the native
born citizens, naturalized foreign born workers, permanent resident
aliens, and those foreign born nationals given non-immigrant visas that
permit them to work temporarily in the United States) would face the
increased competition for jobs as well as wage suppression from such
pro-immigrant policies. Hence, immigration has always been a ``no-win''
issue for the American labor movement.
Nonetheless, a choice must be made. At every juncture and with no
exception prior to the late 1980s, the labor movement either directly
instigated or strongly supported every legislative initiative enacted
by Congress to restrict immigration and to enforce its policy
provisions. Labor leaders intuitively sensed that union membership
levels were inversely related to prevailing trends in immigration
levels. When the percentage of the population who were foreign born
increased, the percentage of the labor force who belonged to unions
tended to fall; conversely when the percentage of the population who
were foreign born declined, the percentage of the labor force who
belonged to unions tended to rise. History has validated those
perceptions. To this end, the policy pursuits of the labor movement
over these many years were congruent with the economic interests of
American workers in general--whether or not they were union members
(and most were not).
But by the early 1990s, some in the leadership ranks of organized
labor began to waffle on the issue. This was despite the fact that the
nation was in the midst of the largest wave of mass immigration in its
history while the percentage of the labor force who belonged to unions
was plummeting. In February 2000 the Executive Council of the American
Federation of Labor--Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
announced it was changing its historic position. It would now support
expanded immigration, lenient enforcement of immigration laws and the
legislative agenda of immigrant advocacy groups. Subsequently, AFL-CIO
officials publicly explained that the organization was now
``championing immigrant rights as a strategic move to make immigrants
more enthusiastic about joining unions.''
In mid-2005, four unions who had belonged to the AFL-CIO
disaffiliated and formed a new federation--Change-to-Win (CTW). The
largest of these to disaffiliate was the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU). While there were other issues involved in
this split-up, SEIU had been the leading voice for the efforts to
change labor's historic role on the subject of immigration within the
AFL-CIO. It continues to be in its new role in CTW.
But the key point is that hitherto the labor movement had been the
nation's most effective advocate for the economic advancement of all
American workers eligible to legally work. With these position changes,
the issue is open to question. Working people--especially those on the
lowest rungs of the economic ladder--can no longer be assured that the
most effective champion they have ever had is still there for them. The
potential loss of public support for organized labor among the general
populace may in the long run prove to be more costly than any short run
tactical gains achieved by this shift in its advocacy position.
a brief review of labor's pre-1990 position
Although efforts of working people to band together to form
organizations to represent their collective interests date back to the
earliest days of the Republic, it was not until the1850s that several
craft unions were able to establish organizations that could survive
business cycle fluctuations, anti-labor court rulings, and employer
opposition to their existence. By this time, immigration had already
become a controversial subject among the populace. Immigrants were used
as strikebreakers and as an alternative source of workers that could be
used to forestall union organizing. Already unions were contending that
rising immigration levels were making it difficult to secure wage
increases and improvements in working conditions. But the federal
government had yet to formulate any specific policies to regulate the
flow.
With the coming of the Civil War in 1861, labor shortages quickly
developed in the industrialized North. As a consequence the first
statutory immigration law was adopted in 1864 by Congress. The Contract
Labor Act, as it became known as, allowed employers to recruit foreign
workers, pay their transportation costs, and obligate them to work for
them for a period of time for no wages until they could repay the
transportation and often their subsistence costs during this period of
virtual servitude. The program continued after the war ended. Free
labor, quickly deduced that they could not compete with such workers
who could not quit and who were not paid. The National Labor Union
(NLU), the principle labor organization at the time, viewed the
Contract Labor Act as an artificial method to stimulate immigration and
to suppress wages for all workers. They sought repeal of the
authorizing legislation and were successful in doing so in 1868. But
the practice itself was not banned and it continued to flourish as a
private sector recruiting device.
The NLU then shifted it attention to the large-scale immigration of
unskilled Chinese workers who were also largely recruited through the
use of contract labor. Employers consistently paid Chinese workers less
than white workers (which is often done today with illegal immigrant
workers). Naturally, the belief that Chinese workers would work for
considerably less than they would raised the ire of the white workers.
Chinese workers were also used as strikebreakers. As the practice of
hiring Chinese workers for low pay spread to the East from the West
Coast, the NLU responded to the pleas of workers to end such practices.
The NLU sought repeal of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 with China that
allowed Chinese immigrants to enter the country on the same terms as
immigrants from other countries (although they could not become
naturalized citizens).
By 1872, however, the NLU had passed away after as it
unsuccessfully tried to become a political party. A new national labor
organization, the Knights of Labor, had been formed by this time. It
picked up the baton of trying to reform the nation's quiescent
immigration system. Concluding that the revival of mass immigration was
serving to depress wages for working people and to provide employers
with ample supplies of strikebreakers that hampered union organizing,
it too sought repeal of the Burlingame treaty and for legislation to
end the practice of contract labor. They were unable to have the Treaty
revoked but they did succeed in getting it amended to allow the United
States to ``suspend'' the entry of unskilled Chinese immigrants. This
was done in 1882 with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act that
suspended Chinese immigration for ten year (and the practice continued
until the law was repealed in 1943 and China was given a small quota).
The Knights then successfully lobbied for passage of the Alien Contract
Act of 1885 (and strengthening amendments in 1887 and 1888). This
legislation forbade all recruitment of foreign labor by American
employers under contractual terms. This ban remained in effect until
1952 when, unfortunately, it was repealed and this practice is today
once more becoming a mounting concern for both organized labor and
American labor in general (i.e., the H1-B visa issue, etc.).
Despite these successes by the Knights, by the 1880s their
organizing appeal (that emphasized long run political reforms) had lost
its following. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) came into being
during this decade. Its member unions tended to focus on the
achievement of short run economic gains in ``the here and now.''
Samuel Gompers was instrumental in the formation of the AFL. He was
its president for all but one year between 1886 and 1924 and is
generally recognized as being the most influential labor leader in
American history. Gompers was himself an immigrant (as were many of the
nation's union leaders during the movements formative years).
Nevertheless, when the Supreme Court finally confirmed in 1892 that the
federal government has sole responsibility for the formulation and
enforcement of the nation's immigration laws, the opportunity for
organized labor to press national political leaders to adopt finally an
immigration policy that set limits, screens applicants, and that could
be held accountable for its employment and wage consequences. In his
autobiography, Gompers boasted that ``the labor movement was among the
first organizations to urge such policies.'' For as he famously stated:
``we immediately realized that immigration is, in its fundamental
aspects, a labor problem.'' For no matter how immigrants are admitted
legally or enter illegally, they must work to support themselves.
Hence, the labor market consequences should be paramount when designing
the terms of the nation's immigration policy.
In 1896, the AFL leadership first addressed directly the issue of
limiting immigration. Gompers at the AFL convention that year
proclaimed ``immigration is working an great injury to the people of
our country.'' At its convention the following year, the AFL adopted a
formal resolution calling on the federal government to impose a
literacy test for all would-be immigrants in their native languages. As
the preponderance of immigrants at the time were illiterate in their
native tongues, the implicit goal of the requirement was to to reduce
the level of unskilled worker immigration into the country. It renewed
this effort in 1905 and did so at every subsequent convention until
such legislation did become the law of the land in 1917.
When the Immigration Commission (i.e., the Dillingham Commission)
issued its famous report in 1911 on the impact of the immigration on
the U.S. economy and society, its findings confirmed the AFL beliefs
that mass immigration was depressing wages, causing unemployment,
spreading poverty and impairing the organizational abilities of unions.
In the wake of the release of this historic report, the Immigration Act
of 1917 was passed. It enacted a literacy test for would-be immigrants
and it also contained the Asiatic Barred Zone provision that banned
virtually all immigration from Asian countries. In 1921, the prospect
of the renewal on mass immigration from Europe led to the passage of
the Immigration Act of 1921 (a temporary step) and then the Immigration
Act of 1924 (a permanent step). These laws imposed the first ceiling on
immigration from Eastern Hemisphere nations in the country's history at
about 154,000 visas a year. Within the overall cap, the law also called
for differential country quotas based on national ethnicity that were
overtly discriminatory. National origins became the basis for admission
or exclusion under this adopted immigration system.
The AFL and most national labor leaders strongly supported all of
these legislative initiatives. For instance, A. Philip Randolph, who
would soon become president of an AFL affiliated union and who would
later become a national leader of the civil rights movement in the
1940s-1960s era, wrote in strong favor of the adoption of these
restrictive laws. He claimed the nation was suffering from
``immigration indigestion.'' Mass immigration, he claimed was
imperiling union organizing and was especially harmful to the economic
welfare of African American workers who were just beginning to migrate
out of the South in significant numbers. He even suggested that the
appropriate immigration level should be ``zero.''
With the passage of these immigration laws as well as the onset of
the depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s, immigration
levels fell dramatically while union membership levels soared to
unprecedented heights. In the immediate postwar years, the AFL did
support efforts to admit a limited number of refugees. But it also
reaffirmed its belief that there was no need to increase the level of
immigration or to change any of the existing immigration statutes. The
AFL did strongly criticize the continuation of the Mexican Labor
Program (popularly known as the ``bracero program'') that had been
introduced as a temporary guest worker program during the war years but
had remained operational after the end of the war because it was
popular with agricultural employers. Organized labor, supported by
emerging research findings, contended that employers regularly
undermined the worker protections and wage requirements so that Mexican
workers were exploited while American workers were discouraged from
being employed in this industry. In the process, unionization efforts
were thwarted. The AFL lobbied hard for its termination--which finally
happened at the end of 1964.
After the AFL merged with the CIO in 1955, both new combined
federation did join efforts launched by the Kennedy Administration and
completed by the Johnson Administration in 1965 to eliminate the
overtly discriminatory features of the prevailing immigration laws.
Organized labor concurred with other reform advocates that the
discriminatory features of these laws were hampering efforts by the
country to even reach the low immigration ceiling that was in effect.
Nations with high quotas could not fill them while nations with low
quotas had massive backlogs. Organized labor supported efforts to find
a new admission selection system that was not discriminatory. But
organized labor agreed with the other reform groups of that time that
there should not be any increase in the low level of overall
immigration. The politicians that crafted the new legislation assured
labor and the nation that passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 would
not lead to a return to mass immigration. But it did--and it continues
to do so.
In 1965 the foreign-born population was only 4.4 percent of the
total population (the lowest percentage in all of American history).
Union membership, however, was near its all time high--30.1 percent of
the employed non-agricultural labor force were union members in 1965.
But both trends were about to be sharply reversed.
The new legislation introduced family reunification as the basis
for almost three-quarters of the available visas. The number of
immediate family members whose numbers were not limited rose far faster
than were anticipated. Furthermore, there were no enforcement teeth
included in the new law--which gave implicit sanction to illegal entry.
There were no penalties for those employers who hired them. Illegal
entries quickly soared--especially in the Southwest where former
``bracero'' workers just kept coming--albeit illegally--after the
program was terminated on December 31, 1964. A new admission category
for refugees was quickly overwhelmed by political decisions to admit
vast numbers of persons well beyond what was specified in the law.
Thus, because there were so many unexpected consequences from the
legislation adopted in 1965, immigration reform was back on the table
by the mid-1970s.
The Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy
(SCIRP)(also known as the Hesburgh Commission) was created by Congress
in 1978 in response to a package of legislative proposals by the Carter
Administration to address the immigration policy crisis. SCIRP's
findings led to the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 and set the
basis for the terms of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
that was adopted in 1986. The key provision of IRCA was the enactment
of a system of sanctions that made it illegal for employers to hire
illegal immigrants. It also provided for what was believed at the time
to be a ``one-time'' amnesty for those who had entered the country
while the law was ambiguous. Once more, organized labor strongly
supported these endeavors and it lobbied hard for their adoption. They
also pressed for ``an eligibility verification system that is secure
and non-forgeable'' and expressed strong opposition to ``any new guest
worker program'' at the 1985 AFL-CIO convention. Following the passage
of IRCA, the 1987 AFL-CIO convention adopted another resolution calling
IRCA ``the most important and far reaching immigration in 30 years''
and ``applauded the inclusion in that law of employer sanctions and a
far-reaching legalization program.''
a brief review of labor's post-1990 position
When Congress turned to reform of the nation's legal immigration
system in the late 1980s, organized labor opted not to take an active
role in the legislative debates for the first time in its history. The
AFL-CIO did not specify any changes it wanted but it did indicate what
it opposed. At its 1989 convention, it stated its opposition to any
efforts to reduce the number of immigrants admitted on the basis of
family reunification; it opposed any suggestion to increase the number
of employment-based immigrants--favoring greater investment in the
nation's education and job training efforts to meet any skilled labor
needs. It did seek a cap on the number of non-immigrant work visas
issued to foreign performing talent and their traveling crews.
When the Immigration Act of 1990 did pass, it slightly increased
the number of available family-based immigrant visas; it more than
doubled the number of employment-based visas; it added a new
``diversity admission'' category for 55,000 immigrants admitted on a
lottery basis from countries that had had low number of immigrants in
the preceding 5 years. The cap on the number of nonimmigrant visas for
performing talent was included.
At its 1993 Convention, the AFL-CIO drastically reversed itself
from it past course. It passed a resolution that praised the role that
immigrants have played ``in building the nation.'' It proceeded to
demonize unidentified critics of immigration reform--especially critics
of illegal immigration (which by this time was a national issue again
despite IRCA). It then called upon local unions to develop programs to
``address the special needs of immigrant members and potential
members.'' Clearly, a new immigration position was emerging within the
leadership of the AFLCIO.
At the same time, the Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) (also
known as the Jordan Commission) had been created by Congress and had
begun its task of assessing the effectiveness of the existing
immigration system. It issued a series of interim reports, to which the
AFL-CIO leadership seemed to be responding. When its final report was
issued, it concluded that ``our current system must undergo major
reform.'' It recommended a 35 percent reduction in the annual level of
legal immigration admissions; elimination of a number of extended
family admission categories; no unskilled workers be admitted under the
employment-based admission categories; elimination of the diversity
admission category; inclusion of a fixed number of refugee admissions
within the annual admission ceiling; no new guest worker programs; and
a crackdown on illegal immigration.
The AFL-CIO responded by rejecting virtually all of these
recommendations. It even denied that illegal immigrants were to
adversely affecting the economic well-being of low skilled American
workers. When Congress responded to the interim reports of CIR by
introducing legislation in 1996 that sought to codify most of CIR
recommendations, the AFL-CIO joined with a coalition of business, agri-
business, Christian conservatives and libertarians to separate all of
the proposed legal immigration reforms from the proposed comprehensive
bill and then kill them. They them stripped-away the key provisions
requiring employers to verify the Social Security numbers of new hires
as a way to combat illegal immigration as well the proposal to limit
refugee admissions. Thus, organized labor's leadership abandoned the
efforts to improve the economic circumstances of low skilled workers in
the country by reducing their competition with illegal immigrants.
Their explanation was that their organizing efforts in many urban areas
had led to more contact with concentrations of immigrants--many of whom
were illegal immigrants. Hence, they concluded that they needed to take
a more accommodative stance on these key issues that many immigrants
cared about.
When the Clinton Administration announced in 1999 that it was
essentially abandoning worksite enforcement of employer sanctions (and
the subsequent Bush Administration followed suit), organized labor
concluded that, as a matter of self-defense, it needed to become an
advocate for the immigrant community in general and illegal immigrants
in particular. The labor movement was increasingly finding that
employers were violating the immigration laws with impunity. Unions do
not hire employees; employers do--and more and more of them were hiring
illegal immigrants for low skilled jobs in particular. Under these
circumstances, unions were either going to have to abandon organizing
significant sectors of certain industries or they were going to have to
become supporters of immigrant causes in order to ingratiate themselves
to those they were seeking to organize. They believed that if unions
gave up organizing workers who were illegal immigrants, employers would
have even more incentive to hire illegal immigrants. Thus, organizing
illegal immigrants is not a matter of principle, it is a matter of
necessity. Advocating for their protection, they concluded, was simply
part of the organizing reality they confront.
At the October 1999 AFL-CIO convention, the pro-immigrant element
made its move from the convention floor. Unions representing janitors,
garment workers, hotel workers and restaurant workers argued that the
labor movement needed to abandon its past and embrace immigrant causes
if it is to survive. They sought to end the use of employer sanctions
and they sought to enact another mass amnesty for those who had entered
illegally since the last general amnesty in 1986. To avoid a public
confrontation, the issue was deferred until the AFL-CIO Executive
Council could take up the issue in February 2000. It did so and
following that meeting it announced that it would seek to have the
employer sanctions provision of IRCA repealed and that it would fight
for another general amnesty for most of the millions of illegal
immigrants in the country at the time. At the leadership level, at
least, organized labor chose to become a supporter of the immigrant
agenda--even if that agenda imperiled the economic well-being of vast
numbers of the American work force.
concluding observations
By 2006, the foreign born population has swollen to 12.1 percent of
the population and almost 15 percent of the labor force. Union
membership in 2006 had continued the decline that had begun following
the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965--falling to only 12 percent
of the employed nonagricultural labor force. The revival of the
phenomenon of mass immigration is, of course, not the only explanation
for the decline in union membership. There are multiple factors--all of
which are beyond the scope of this testimony. But mass immigration is
one of the key factors--especially because of the large component of
the total flow are illegal immigrants (estimated in 2006 to number
close to 12 million persons, of whom an estimated 7.4 million are
illegal immigrant workers).
As the findings of two national Commissions as well as the bulk of
credible research on the impact of immigration on the nation's work
force, immigration laws need to be strengthen--not weakened. Employer
sanctions set the moral tone for the rationale for existence of
immigration policy as a worksite issue. One has to be eligible to work
in the United States, not simply want to work in the United States. If
that is the case, there has to be some way to restrict access to
employment only to those who are permitted by existing law to work.
Employer sanctions are designed to accomplish this feat. But to be
meaningful, they have to be enforced at the worksite. Such inspections
must become routine. Furthermore, the identity loophole of the use
counterfeit documents must also be closed. There can be no more
amnesties (no matter what euphemism is used). There has been no
ambiguity in the law since 1986. Persons who have brazenly violated the
law against their employment not only should not be at the worksite,
they should not even be in the country. Certainly there is no reason to
legalize their status so that they can continue to complete with
American workers for whom the workplace is supposedly reserved. If
illegal immigrants can be kept out of the workplace, there would no
longer be any dilemma for organized labor to confront. The real onus is
on government to get illegal immigrants out of the labor force.
Until that time, however, organized labor seems convinced that it
has no choice but to abandon its traditional role of the past when it
sought to monitor the impact of immigration on the well-being of the
working people of the country. But in the process of becoming an
advocate for the pro-immigrant political agenda, there is a heavy cost.
First, it means that it is unlikely that any organizing success of
immigrant workers will be able to translate in to any real ability to
improve the wages and benefits of such workers. None of the basic
parameters have changed. As long as the labor market continues to be
flooded with low-skilled immigrant workers (many of whom are illegal
immigrants), unions will not be able to defy market forces that will
serve to suppress wages and to stifle any opportunity to improve
working conditions. New recruits will pay dues but they cannot expect
to see much in the way of material gain form becoming union members.
Secondly, organized labor will run the risk of alienating itself
from the millions of low skilled American workers who must compete with
the waves of unskilled immigrant workers now in the labor market and
the many more who will continue to seek access to the jobs it has to
offer. The more organized labor speaks on behalf of illegal immigrants
the sooner more American workers are going to realize that the labor
movement does not really have their real interests at heart. Indeed, it
would be harming them.
Third and last, the greatest danger that this shift in position
raises is the prospect that the broader public itself will lose faith
in the moral credibility of the labor movement. Is it actually a voice
that speaks for the best interests of all working people (members or
not) which it often claims to be--or is it just another selfish
interest group willing to sacrifice the national interest for selfish
gain? The entire nation has a stake in the struggle to develop a viable
and enforceable immigration policy. Future generation will be impacted
by decisions made today. For this reason it would be wise if the
leadership of organized labor today would reflect on the words of a
labor leader of the past, John Mitchell, the influential President of
the United Mine Workers, who in 1903 stated:
Trade unions are strong, but they are not invincible nor
omnipotent. And it is well that they are not so, for the wisdom
that they have shown has been largely due to the ever present
necessity of appealing to the public for sympathy and support.
In the long run the success or failure of trade unions will
depend on the intelligent judgment of the American people.
If the labor movement is to prosper, it should reflect on the
wisdom of Mitchell's words when it comes to the design of immigration
policy. In seeking to ally itself in the post-1990s with other societal
groups that have wider political agendas, the leadership of organized
labor is now supporting policies that are patently harmful to the well-
being of the nation's labor force. What is bad economics for working
people can never be good politics for unions. The ``American people''
know this.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Serbon.
TESTIMONY OF GREG SERBON, STATE DIRECTOR, INDIANA FEDERATION
FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM AND ENFORCEMENT
Mr. Serbon. Thank you.
First off, I would like to state that I do not represent my
local or the National Union. This is my view on immigration as
State Director for the Indiana Federation for Immigration
Reform and Enforcement and also as a union member. Being a
union construction worker and an immigration activist, I am in
a unique position because I travel to many different job sites
and have the opportunity to speak with coworkers about
immigration, both legal and illegal.
Union workers have set wages for different trades. Since
the influx of legal immigrant and illegal alien workers in our
trade, I have witnessed the wage an illegal alien receives as
significantly lower than that of what union scales are. Because
illegal aliens are willing to work for lower wages than an
American and a legal immigrant who is doing the same job,
employers are willing to hire an illegal alien over an American
citizen and a legal immigrant. If an illegal alien is competing
for the job available, an American citizen and a legal
immigrant will not get the job. This is just one of many
problems I see with the current state of legal and illegal
immigration in America at the present time.
The language barrier on a job site is a serious safety
hazard with many illegal aliens not being able to understand
even simple English. The problem will continue and may become
worse because Senate bill 1348 does not adequately address the
requirement to speak English in the current version.
I have witnessed immigrants taking chances no American
would take to complete a job; for example, someone using a
broken piece of equipment or not using personal protective
equipment when using power tools that could result in an eye or
a hearing injury. Some of the problems I have mentioned have
led to higher accident rates among illegal alien construction
workers. I believe that any law you pass increasing foreign
workers will only make this problem worse.
Lately I have been asking my coworkers how they feel about
this Senate immigration bill 1348 and its provisions to
increase the amount of foreign workers into the country.
Congressmen, I have never heard so many angry responses from my
coworkers in all of the years I have been involved in the
immigration reform movement. Congress cannot bring hundreds of
thousands of uneducated, non-English-speaking people into
America and expect our work environment and living standards to
remain the same.
The single biggest complaint from my coworkers is about the
amnesty or granted earned citizenship for people with no
respect for the rule of law and a slap in the face to those of
us who abide by the laws you pass. Lawmakers should never be in
the position of advocating rewarding law-breaking. Our current
immigration law does not exempt anyone illegally in America
from deportation simply because they are hard workers.
The founder of the AFL, Samuel Gompers, wrote a letter to
Congress in 1924 concerning immigration. He stated ``America
must not be overwhelmed. Every effort to enact good immigration
reform legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile
forces.''
Currently, there are two hostile forces of considerable
strength. One of these is composed of corporate employers who
desire to employ physical strength at the lowest possible wage.
They prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a
regular supply of American wage earners at a fair and livable
wage.
The other is composed of organizations, some radical, who
benefit from illegal aliens. They oppose all restrictive
legislation, suggesting that the immigration policy of the
United States should be based in the best interests of
immigrants, not the best interests of the United States and its
citizenry.
America can not sustain mass immigration it is currently
being asked to receive. We are on the undisputable path to a
bleak future of limited air quality, limited water resources
and poor living conditions, failing public education, and any
resemblance of the American dream. What if so many people
receive the American dream, and 1 day it were depleted?
Congressmen, history is repeating itself as this hearing is
taking place. Self-interest groups are at the table, including
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, La Raza, big Corporate America,
none of which have the best intentions for the American worker.
My whole reason for being a union member and an immigration
reform activist is to support the rights of the American worker
to be first in the job market and require a safe workplace with
a fair, livable wage. In my opinion, large-scale increases in
workers you plan to legalize and import will be a serious
problem to my fellow American workers and to their quality of
life.
Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Mr. Serbon.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Serbon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Greg Serbon
Congressmen I want to thank you for inviting me to testify before
the committee and allowing me to share with you my thoughts and views
on America's immigration problem.
Being a union construction worker and an immigration activist I'm
in a unique position because I travel to many different jobsites and
have the opportunity to speak with co-workers about immigration.
Union workers have set wages for the different trades. Since the
influx of legal immigrants and illegal alien workers into our trade, I
have witnessed the wage an illegal alien receives is significantly
lower than what union scales are.
Because illegal aliens are willing to work for lower wages than an
American and legal immigrant who is doing the same job, employers are
willing to hire an illegal alien over an American citizens and legal
immigrant. If an illegal alien is competing for the job available, the
American citizen and the legal immigrant will not get the job. This is
just one of many problems I see with the current state of legal and
illegal immigration in America at the present time.
The language barrier on the job site is a serious safety hazard
with many illegal aliens not being unable to understand even simple
English. This problem will continue and may become worse because Senate
Bill 1348 doesn't adequately address the requirement to speak English,
in the current version.
I've witnessed immigrants taking chances no American would take to
complete a job. For example someone using a broken piece of equipment
or not using personal protective equipment when using power tools that
could result in eye or hearing injury.
Some of the problems I've mentioned have led to higher accident and
death rates among illegal alien construction workers. I believe any law
you pass increasing foreign workers, will only make these problems
worse.
Lately I've been asking my co-workers how they feel about the
Senate's immigration bill 1348 and its provision to increase the amount
of foreign workers into our country. Congressmen, I have never heard so
many angry responses from my co-workers in all the years that I've been
involved in the immigration reform movement.
Congress cannot bring in hundreds of thousands of uneducated, non-
English speaking people into America and expect that our work
environment and living standards will remain the same.
The single biggest complaint from my co-workers is about the
amnesty. Granting a path to earned citizenship for people who have no
respect for the rule of law, is a slap in the face to those of us who
abide by the laws you pass! Lawmakers should never be in the position
of advocating and rewarding law breaking. Our current immigration law
does not exempt anyone illegally in America from deportation simply
because they are hard workers!
The founder of the AFL, Samuel Gompers, wrote a letter to congress
in 1924 concerning immigration. He stated America must not be
overwhelmed! Every effort to enact good immigration reform legislation
must expect to meet a number of hostile forces. Currently there are two
hostile forces of considerable strength.
One of these is composed of corporate employers who desire to
employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage.
They prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages, to a regular
supply of American wage earners at a fair and livable wage.
The other is comprised of organizations, some radical, who benefit
from illegal aliens. They oppose all restrictive legislation suggesting
that the immigration policy of the United States should be based on the
best interest of immigrants, not the best interest of the United States
and it's citizenry. America cannot sustain the mass immigration it is
currently being asked to receive. We are on an undisputable path to a
bleak future of limited air quality, limited water resource, poor
living conditions, failing public education and any resemblance of the
American Dream. What if . . . so many people received the American
Dream . . . one day it was depleted?
Congressmen history is repeating itself as this hearing is taking
place. The self interest groups are at the table, including the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, La Raza (which means ``the race'') who primarily
represent people who are Mexican, Big Corporate America, none of which
have the best of intentions for the American worker.
My whole reason for being a union member and an immigration reform
activist is to support the rights of the American worker to be first in
the job market and require a safe work place with a fair, livable wage.
In my opinion the large scale increase in workers you plan to legalize
and import, be a serious problem to my fellow American workers and
their quality of life.
Thank you
Ms. Lofgren. Thanks to all of you for your testimony.
We will now begin our series of questions. Each of us is
allotted 5 minutes, and I will begin.
I think that in listening to our labor witnesses, you have
been actually very clear as to the outlines of what you think
is required for any future immigration program, and although
people sometimes say there are divisions in labor, I think
there are certainly variations on a theme; but really, you have
been clear and remarkably coherent, consistent, and together on
that, and so that is very helpful to me as we move forward,
knowing not only what the point of view is but why.
One of the things that is being debated in the Senate
bill--and I am wondering if you have an opinion on it--is this
point system. It troubles me in a sense because, just as with
the temporary worker program where working people are sort of
fungible units instead of individuals, for the future full of
workers--and they would not just be Ph.Ds. Obviously, they
would be people with skillsets and the like--they are sort of
fungible units.
How do you think that would work in your union environment?
If the four union representatives could address that.
Mr. Hiatt. Congresswoman, I do not think that there is
anything wrong with the concept of a system that actually
measures the economic need for future flow. In fact, that is
something that we advocate. I cannot pass judgment on the
specific formula that has been suggested in the Senate or on
the specific allocation of points. There are some very
troubling aspects to it, among which include the fact that
whatever that formula is would be set in stone for a very
lengthy period of time and it has no flexibility.
Ms. Lofgren. So it needs to be reality-based.
Mr. Hiatt. It has to be reality-based. And I think that if
you have a reality-based system that truly looks not just by
employer attestations and employers' saying we need workers
because we can bring in more vulnerable, exploitable labor that
way, and you have a truly independent economic analysis of what
is needed, in what sectors and when, that cannot be satisfied
at prevailing wages domestically, then it is fine to have----
Ms. Lofgren. You really need to test the market.
Mr. Hiatt. That makes sense much more than an arbitrary cap
or a political compromise. So I like the concept, itself, but I
think it has to remain flexible and it has to be geared toward
the economic realities in any given sector at any given time.
Ms. Lofgren. Five minutes goes so quickly.
Since you are here, Mr. Wilson, I have a question, and we
have not really had a chance to ask this.
We had, at an earlier hearing, Swift & Company testify
about the ICE raids, and they were a basic pilot company, and
they testified that they lost $30 million as a consequence of
the ICE raid, even though they testified that they had tried to
comply by using the basic pilot. They were not really able to
testify about the impact of that raid on the individual
workers, and I think most of those employees were represented
by UFCW.
Can you talk about the impact on those workers, both legal
and undocumented?
Mr. Wilson. Well, it is hard to do it in the time frame we
have here, but let me say, I think the biggest problem from our
perspective with the ICE raids is that you have law enforcement
officers who essentially scoop workers up and sort them out;
and so people who were scooped up and taken as part of these
raids were both legal immigrants and native-born Americans. You
know, they divided people by the way they looked, and they
decided you go over here, and you go over here, and we need to
see your documents.
It was a very chilling--a very chilling situation that
happened inside those plants. We had people who were taken
hundreds of miles away from home simply because they did not
have their documents with them. When they could prove that they
were legal, they were left hundreds of miles from home and
told, ``Okay. You are free. You can go now.'' They were
provided no transportation home.
You have heard about the breakup of families where there
were kids left at schools or at daycare centers, and nobody
knew who was going to get them or when. But a lot of those
communities are still facing, you know, real tragedies about
what happened in the ICE raids, and it is a human disaster. It
really is.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you for that.
I just want to ask--and maybe I can ask Mr. Feinstein,
since I have not directed a question to you.
As to the idea of separating the families from the
employees on these temporary worker programs in the Senate,
does eliminating the families provide you protection for the
workers, that you can see?
Mr. Feinstein. No, absolutely not, and we are strongly
opposed to those provisions. Workers coming to this country
have to be afforded fair and humane conditions, and that
certainly does not qualify as one.
Ms. Lofgren. My time is up, and I am going to try to set a
good example of living within the time frame.
We have reserved the opening statement of the Chairman of
the Committee for his arrival.
Would you wish to give your opening statement now, Mr.
Conyers, or continue to reserve?
Mr. Conyers. I would rather wait.
Ms. Lofgren. All right then.
We will then turn to the Ranking Member, Mr. King, for his
5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, I thank the witnesses for being here today. I am
just going to start out by being--I am going to attempt to be
succinct here.
When you grant a legalized status to 12 or 20 or more
million people--and by the way, no one is talking about this as
the amnesty to end all amnesties. That has already gone by the
wayside. It is a presumption that this is an amnesty along the
way to many more amnesties in the future.
This is a destruction of the rule of law, the most
essential pillar of American exceptionalism. That is what is at
stake here with this Senate bill and with what we are
discussing here in the House, even though we do not have a bill
before us. It is a destruction of the rule of law. It is a
destruction of the middle class, and it is a suspension of the
law of supply and demand. And I have heard it here in this
testimony, and so I am not going to take care of what I think
might be the end result for the Republican Party because I do
not know that there is a majority among the witnesses that
might be able to speak to that. But I would then just submit my
first question to Mr. Feinstein, and that would be--no. Let me
make another presumption.
I am going to presume that because this law of supply and
demand has been suspended from the logic calculus of the union
leadership, I can only come to one conclusion. And if you try
to be rational about it, it comes to this conclusion: which is,
I believe, that the leadership in the unions have made a
political calculus, and that political calculus is we are going
to have to suspend an increase in wages and benefits for our
rank-and-file members for a temporary period of time so we can
get tens of millions of enough people in here who will give us
the political power to eventually get what we really want.
So my question then to Mr. Feinstein, first, is: If one
were to go through your testimony and redact everything that
grants political power and leverage and influence to the
unions, what would be left that you are advocating for for the
general public that Dr. Briggs addressed?
Mr. Feinstein. Well, I am not sure I completely follow the
question, but----
Mr. King. My question simply is, if you take out the
political influence, the political power and those things, what
is left? What does the general public look at? Because Dr.
Briggs testified that he is concerned that the general support
for unions will be eroded by this new position within the last
10 years or so. So what is left? What is the general public
going to see that comes out of here that is really good for the
average American citizen?
Mr. Feinstein. Well, our position is that we need to fix a
broken system, and the impetus, the goal, the objective of the
reform that is needed is precisely to eliminate the downward
pressures on the wages and working conditions of American
workers.
Mr. King. But you have to suspend the laws of supply and
demand to do that.
Mr. Feinstein. Quite to the contrary.
We feel that the status quo--what is happening now with
people having to function in the shadows with an underground
economy that is flourishing, is that there needs to be a fix
in----
Mr. King. Then why does your position so dramatically
disagree with and oppose the philosophies of Gompers, see Cesar
Chavez, the labor workers for centuries--not centuries, but
generations in this country; why have you come to this new
realization of this new position that supply and demand, that
border enforcement, employer enforcement, keeping a tight labor
supply; keeping a tight labor supply is good for workers in
America, organized and not organized, merit shop and union shop
employees? How can you come to this new conclusion here without
some new basis for the economy?
Mr. Feinstein. I would respectfully disagree with the
analysis that this is a new and different, fundamentally
different approach. I think that the labor movement has always
stood for protecting the wages and working conditions of all
American workers, and we believe that today in this climate
that we are faced with now requires the kinds of solutions that
we have proposed----
Mr. King. My clock is ticking. I wish I had the opportunity
to complete. I want to quickly say that wages in the packing
plants in my area used to be matched that of teachers 20 years
ago. Today they are half that of teachers, Worthington,
Minnesota, the list goes on. But, Dr. Briggs, can you give me
some light on this subject matter of how this law of supply and
demand can be suspended in the minds of the leadership.
Mr. Briggs. It is hard to understand how you can favor
amnesty programs that would essentially legitimize the presence
of illegal immigrants, plus the massive chain migration that
will come within the next 20 years, a massive infusion of
people poorly educated, poorly skilled coming into the labor
market without having awful adverse effects on the bottom of
the labor market particularly and especially those people in
the segment of the labor market where the impact of illegal
immigration is so massive.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. I would turn
now to Mr. Gutierrez.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has
come from the panel. I would just like to ask Mr. Hiatt, the
AFL-CIO, John Sweeney in particular, representing the AFL-CIO
when Senator Kennedy and I introduced the SOLVE Act stood with
us here outside this very building--it had a temporary worker
program--could you explain to us what has changed since the
SOLVE Act?
Mr. Hiatt. As with AgJOBS, as with all these different
bills we have to look at all of the elements of the bill and
the context in which they occur. Even the SOLVE Act had all
kinds of worker protections which have not existed in any of
the bills that have been introduced then, several of which we
would strongly urge be put back into existing bills. But I
think that what has changed, we look at the trends that have
existed over the past several years whereby both the
undocumented immigration, illegal immigration, and guest
workers have such a depressive effect on wages, on standards.
Mr. Gutierrez. Just because we are allies, they are not
going to give me more than 5 minutes to have this conversation.
I wish with friends they would give more time. I share with you
concerns about the temporary worker program. The difference
that I find and I would like you to respond to this is when I
got here in 1993, the labor movement gave me a response to
NAFTA. The labor movement said this is what we believe in, and
the labor movement gave me particular parameters that helped us
work together.
Have you submitted to anyone your new worker program to the
Congress and just what it would look like and the parameters or
are you just against any new worker program as part of
comprehensive immigration?
Mr. Hiatt. Not at all. In fact, you have one of the
documents we have submitted to the record is our model for
foreign workers coming in instead of temporary worker programs.
Because we do see that there is a difference between the
foreign worker programs on the one hand and illegal immigration
on the other. It is clearly better to have workers here on
status, but we do believe there is a much better alternative,
not that there isn't going to be need for temporary worker and
permanent worker programs.
So we do have an affirmative alternative and that is in the
record, and I alluded to it in my remarks here. It is expanded
upon in the written testimony. But for permanent jobs, which is
so much of what you are trying to address in this new
legislation as opposed to seasonal agricultural short-term
work, we suggest people come in----
Mr. Gutierrez. Do you support the AgJOBS proposal?
Mr. Hiatt. We supported it because the two farm worker
unions, the UFW and FLOC, have both agreed as much of a
political compromise as anything else that in order to address
these problems unique to the agricultural sector that----
Mr. Gutierrez. So when it comes to the agricultural sector
you do support the AgJOBS proposal. I just want to make sure
since the AgJOBS proposal is similar, if not identical in many
of its aspects, to how we would treat, number one, future flow
of workers. As a matter of fact, future flow of workers under
the STRIVE Act would come to this country and, number one,
would get a 3-year visa renewable for 3 years, be able to come
with their spouses and family members to the United States.
After 6 years, they would be able to self-petition. That visa
that they could would be portable. They would have all of the
labor rights that any other American worker.
We included after the SOLVE Act, which the AFL-CIO did
support, which did have a temporary worker program, we included
recruitment of American workers as a required creation of a
commission. New workers may not be employed, same working
conditions, new workers cannot undermine labor organizing,
independent contractors could not be allowed. I mean, we
included many more provisions, I assure you, to protect
workers.
And let me just end with this, I think that we have had--I
have had, anyway, and I know Members of this panel have had a
very rich experience with members of the AFL-CIO and organized
labor, and I just want to make sure that as we negotiate, as
you negotiate a contract for your members, as we negotiate
something for the undocumented in this country and for future
flows and our immigrant class in this country, that we take
into consideration the same political realities that you shared
with us, Mr. Hiatt, as it referenced the AgJOBS bill when we
look at the totality of the issue.
I want to continue to strengthen because I know that we
have common goals. Thank you so much.
Mr. Hiatt. We appreciate that, Congressman. We are working
with your staff and look forward to it.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chairwoman, and as
always, the Ranking Member. We have had a marathon series of
hearings which I think provide the grounding for a large,
challenging journey to comport or to find some reconciliation
with the Senate bill, and certainly now I think we are going to
be called the cleanup batters, frankly, because America's eyes
are now turning to the House of Representatives.
Might I just make the comment as it relates to labor,
because your base is diverse. When you go out beyond the
Beltway, even though leadership has taken a very progressive,
if you will, proactive response to the immigration issue, when
you leave and go into your district there is a great deal of
questioning among working people, among your union members. I
think you are well aware of that.
So might I thank you ahead of time for the heavy lifting
that is going to be required and as well, to extend a hand of
friendship on how we work together to get the most effective
people that solves the Nation's problems and really reinforces
America's values, which is a Nation that provides opportunity,
a Nation that builds upon her diversity, and is strengthened by
her diversity.
So I have a series of questions, and I think you have
indicated previously in your testimony that, as I understand
it, that you raise some concerns about the temporary worker
structure, whether it is called temporary worker or guest
worker, and frankly, that is, I think, one of the glaring lines
that most people don't understand.
They are welcoming, and I think 78 percent of the people
believe that we should have earned access to citizenship. Their
neighbors who are working, paying taxes, buying homes, going to
school. They almost ask why not. And if you look at it from a
security perspective, wouldn't you want to know who is in your
neighborhood?
But help me, I will raise these two questions if the four
representatives from the union movement would answer these.
One, what do we do about the temporary worker need from the
business community perspective and the way it is now
structured. Number two, in some of our communities, the
question is raised I am unemployed, I am not a union member,
why can't I be employed? That is particularly a large question
in the African American communities, in the underemployed
communities, in rural communities.
And so a number of us have been working on this concept of
a training, work-related, work retention, hire America first,
some of that language is in there; recruiting of America
workers, et cetera, so that more people can become stakeholders
of fixing the broken immigration system. And I would welcome
your thoughts on how that approach could be utilized as we move
forward on a comprehensive immigration reform and, Mr. Hiatt,
would you start, please?
Mr. Hiatt. Thank you, Congresswoman. Let me try to combine
the two, an answer to the two questions in one. One of the
biggest problems under the current system is how easy it is for
employers to recruit foreign workers without giving a chance to
domestic workers who would be willing to do that same work at
decent wages and with decent working conditions.
They know that they can--they can use labor recruiters who
will shed all liability from the employer themselves, take on
all the liability from the employers themselves, to bring in
workers that can discriminate once they cross the border and
the recruiters can recruit workers based on age, based on
gender, based on race or ethnicity without coming under the
reach of U.S. discrimination laws.
The employers, under most of our temporary work programs
today, simply have to attest they have tried looking for
domestic workers at prevailing wages, can't get them, and they
have a need, and they are home scott free.
So we believe that the protections, whether you are talking
about short-term temporary work where there needs to be a
temporary worker program, or the incredible expansion that the
proposals today would look to in expanding so-called temporary
worker programs to permanent jobs, has to protect the workers
in your district, U.S. workers in your district by ensuring
that not only where there is a legitimate need because there
truly are no workers in the local labor market, but any of the
other labor markets in this country who are willing to do those
jobs at decent wages and working conditions.
Then and only then can you bring in workers. And when you
do, you bring them in at the same rates at the same conditions
as domestic workers with permanency so that you don't have two
tiers, two classes of workers.
When Congressman King was asking why has the labor movement
changed on this, on favoring one group of immigrant workers
over our U.S. born workers, that simply is not the case. We
believe that we are working on behalf of both sets of workers
here because we are trying to avoid a two-tiered system.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired. I would
recognize the gentlelady from California Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank all
the witnesses for being here today and testifying. I have
several questions that I want to run through and have a limited
amount of time, so I ask you all to be brief. The first
question is a yes-or-no question for all the panelists. Do you
generally believe the U.S. has done a good job of enforcing
labor laws respecting wage and hour, workplace safety, and
rights to organize?
Mr. Hiatt. No, it has not.
Mr. Feinstein. No.
Mr. Wilson. Absolutely not.
Mr. Goldstein. No.
Mr. Briggs. An awful job.
Mr. Serbon. No.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. The second yes-or-no question for
the entire panel. Would increased enforcement of these laws in
conjunction with a worker program help improve wages, safety
and labor rights?
Mr. Hiatt. Absolutely yes.
Mr. Feinstein. Absolutely.
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Goldstein. Yes.
Mr. Briggs. Of course.
Mr. Serbon. Maybe.
Ms. Sanchez. Let the record reflect I almost got unanimity
on two questions that I asked. My third question is for Mr.
Feinstein. So long as the employer controls the visa process,
can we hope to raise workplace standards?
Mr. Feinstein. No, I don't believe we can.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. Mr. Hiatt, the new temporary worker
program in the bill currently being debated by the Senate would
force workers who have worked in the U.S. for 2 years to leave
the U.S. For 1 year before they could come back for another 2-
year stint. These workers would be forced to leave no matter
how valuable they had become to their employers or their
coworkers; for example, if they were working in an organizing
drive. And I am concerned about the fact that the bill seems to
treat workers as fungible units rather than the hard working
individuals they are, that contribute value to businesses and
to their communities. What impact do you think such a schedule
would have on labor unions working to organize these workers
and their U.S. coworkers?
Mr. Hiatt. We completely share your concern, and just as
with so many other aspects of these temporary worker programs
that keep the workers from feeling an investment in their
communities, investments in their unions, investment with their
coworkers, it would make it much more difficult.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. When we talk about future flow
worker programs one of the things that we tend to hear a lot
about is whether there are enough U.S. workers to do the jobs
that are needed for our economy, and I agree that there are
jobs that U.S. workers would take if the wages and the benefits
were high enough. I don't completely agree with you, Mr.
Wilson, that every single job is a job that a U.S. worker would
take if the pay and benefits were high enough, because I think
that our economy has moved in a different direction in terms of
information and technology, and it continues to move that way,
and so I think there comes a balancing point at which you can't
pay somebody $75 and hour to do certain jobs because then the
products that result from that, people won't pay the increased
cost.
I think in most cases, you are correct, but I don't agree
100 percent with that statement that you made.
But one thing that does trouble me is this definition of
need in terms of sectors where they say they need workers
because I think that there are U.S. workers that would fill
some of those jobs, again, if the wages an benefits were high
enough. I am wondering, Mr. Wilson or Mr. Camacho, perhaps if
you have any ideas as to how we would ascertain whether there
was, in fact, a labor need or how you would define need for
employers who are looking to bring workers from other countries
to fill those jobs. Any ideas? If you could respond in writing
at a later date.
Mr. Goldstein. I am filling in for Mr. Camacho of the
United Farm Workers, I am Bruce Goldstein with Farmworker
Justice.
Ms. Sanchez. My apologies.
Mr. Goldstein. We believe that employers in agriculture
need to improve wages and working conditions to attract farm
workers and retain farm workers and reduce turnover in these
jobs. Our hope is that if we can pass AgJOBS and legalize most
of the farm labor force, that the employers in various ways
will be required both economically and legally to improve
conditions to stop the high turnover that leads to more
migration. We intend, through union organizing, to achieve that
goal, but we will need assistance from Congress in a variety of
ways and the Administration to promote union organization and
also to enforce labor laws to take away the incentive that
employers have to bring in undocumented workers.
Ms. Sanchez. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. I think there are ways we can ascertain whether
there is a need, but I say the way you cannot do that is simply
by an employer attestation. An employer attestation alone will
not do that.
Ms. Sanchez. I appreciate your answer. Finally, Mr. Hiatt,
in the few seconds that remain, if we can eliminate the
underground economy through a permanent visa program or the
right kind worker program, how much healthier would our economy
be in terms of wages, workplace safety, and tax revenue to this
country?
Mr. Hiatt. I think it would be significantly healthier,
Congresswoman. I am not sure I can answer that in numerical
terms, but there are many studies in addition to all the
anecdotal evidence about the depressive effect that the current
policies are having. I don't think there is any question it
would be a lot healthier.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired. Mr.
Ellison, the gentleman from Minnesota is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Ellison. Let me thank all of the panelists and not just
thank you for coming today, but for the work you have done over
the years. I really appreciate it for working people. I want to
ask a question that is on topic, but a little slightly--it is
an issue I haven't heard enough about. You may not be prepared
to discuss what I will ask you, but I ask you for your best if
you could.
How has our trade policy impacted immigration? I know all
of you are concerned about trade policy, it is something that
you are focused on. I want to talk about whether American trade
policy and how it has driven immigration, and I wonder if any
of you would be willing to offer a viewpoint on the topic. Mr.
Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. I would like to touch on that a minute. We
believe that the enactment and subsequent reaction to NAFTA has
had a tremendous impact on immigration. That when--I am not an
economist, but I pretend to be one sometimes, and I would say
when you drive down the price of corn in Mexico the way we
have, and you drive people off the farms, people are going to
look for ways to sustain themselves and take care of their
families. Part of the reaction to that has been how people have
migrated from places where they couldn't support themselves, to
doing what they need to do to come to a place where they can
support themselves. That has driven a lot of the immigration
from Mexico to the United States.
Mr. Ellison. Mr. Wilson have you or any or your colleagues
on the panel, do you have any documentary evidence, I am not
asking for evidence of causation, because that is tough, but
just even correlation. I mean we had one level of immigration
pre-NAFTA, we got it, an then what happened to the rates after
that?
Mr. Wilson. I don't have anything at hand. I am sure there
are studies out there. We can try to provide that for the
record.
Mr. Ellison. Dr. Briggs.
Mr. Briggs. The mistake, I think, was not including
immigration as part of NAFTA. I opposed NAFTA because it didn't
have any labor standards. I think most of our trade policy has
been a disaster for working people. It has not had any labor
standards imposed on countries that are being able to produce
products abroad and bring them into the United States at lower
cost simply because there are no labor standards those
countries. Firms in this country have gone there to produce. So
I think they are linked.
Mr. Ellison. Right now there are two front burner hot
topics in Congress, one is immigration, the other one is trade.
And I would love to hear them talked about together much more
because my intuition tells me they are tightly linked together.
Does anybody on the panel have any information on statistical
information, any kind of regression analysis in terms of what
impacts and what drives immigration and what impact trade has
on it. Do you have information on that. Does anybody have any
information on that. Does anybody know where I can find
information on that?
Mr. Hiatt. We will get you some, Congressman.
Mr. Ellison. Let me ask you this, what does your intuition
tell you, and I thank you, Mr. Wilson, for jumping out there
and giving me your views, what does your intuition tell me
about how important trade policy is on the conversation we are
having today?
Mr. Feinstein. I would concur with Mr. Wilson's remarks
that there clearly is a correlation, an important correlation,
and often overlooked correlation.
Mr. Ellison. Why is it so overlooked? It seems like, I
mean, the common narrative is America is this great job magnet
and people are coming here just to work, and that sounds like
that has some level of plausibility. But I also believe that
people in Mexico probably like their families, their
communities, and probably don't want to leave them unless they
have to, yet many of them are. So it can't just be the
attraction of work here, it must be something going on there,
and maybe it is related to how--Mr. Hiatt.
Mr. Hiatt. I was going to say I think it is overlooked for
much the same reason, that the assumptions about globalization,
when people talk about the benefits of globalization growing
the world economy, unfortunately much too often they are
talking about for a relatively small slice of the world's
population and ignoring the impact, the negative impacts that
we are seeing with the widening income gap not only in this
country, but around the world.
The potential globalization is fantastic but the realities
are very much underplayed by the media, by policy makers, and,
as you say, are not getting enough attention.
Mr. Ellison. If we accept Mr. Wilson's premise that dumping
cheap corn and grains in Mexico is wiping out small farmers,
which is making them have to leave their home to come find
work, how high--I mean can we ever build a wall high enough to
address that problem?
Mr. Hiatt. Not at all.
But the answer is that you can not separate the enforcement
of labor and employment laws from the enforcement of
immigration laws. If you don't do something so that you have
adequately funded and vigorous enforcement of our labor and
workplace protections, then no wall is going to deal with these
immigration problems.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Ellison. Madam Chair, would I be able to submit the
documentation that I hope to get for the record?
Ms. Lofgren. Certainly. That is correct. The gentleman from
California, Mr. Berman, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Berman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize for missing
some of the questions, but very interesting testimony. I agree
with the Chairwoman about what you said, the Ranking Member,
just as I was leaving seemed to be making a point about unions'
support for any status adjustment for the millions of people
who are now in this country without documents, without status,
call them what you want, undocumented workers, illegal
immigrants, that that was--he didn't put it quite that way, but
I heard it that way, a crass decision to lower, to suppress
wages and dilute benefits and working conditions in order to
sign up more members.
Now one of us, one of us is not in the real world. Those
people are here. They are having that effect now. And why
something which under different kinds of conditions that for me
make it very different than what is referred to as an amnesty,
but give them a way in which they can legalize their status in
addition to the tremendous benefits to our country in dealing
with that problem, gives them more freedom to fight for their
rights, why that is an action to depress, further depress
wages, I don't understand. I just wanted to take exception.
This is not about some new wave, this is about people who
are here and working now in the situation where they can be
readily and are, in many cases, exploited, and it is an effort
to correct that situation. I don't think it is a crass decision
to sign up members. It is to give these people an ability if
they want to feel like they can engage in collective bargaining
and the benefits of that process in order to keep their wages
and the wages of other workers from being depressed.
What I would be curious, if the panel, different members of
the panel could just react to that notion. Mr. Hiatt, if I
recall correctly, you talked about--there is a distinction here
that I think you made between the notion of seasonal workers
and the way we are now talking about temporary workers. When I
hear people talk about temporary workers, and it is in the
context of demographics, we are going to have jobs that the
existing American workforce will not be able to fill.
They are really--no jobs are permanent in one sense, but in
the context in which we think about this, they are really
permanent jobs but we are, and to some extent, the Senate bill
does this, we have designated the people who will fill those
jobs as temporary workers. They will be year-round jobs, they
will continue to exist, but we will funnel workers in those
jobs and then out of those jobs because temporary means
temporary.
So we deem these permanent new jobs to be temporary jobs by
calling the workers who will fill them temporary workers. And
that is different than a seasonal kind of work where there may
be a greater justification for having temporary workers fill,
perform that work, leave, come back the next season, leave.
They are also sort of permanent jobs but they aren't full-time
jobs, and perhaps there are particular difficulties in
recruiting U.S. workers for those kind of jobs because it
requires either being employed a large part of the year or
leaving another presumably permanent job or stringing together
a series of the right kinds of seasonal jobs that may not be
very practical.
I just realize I have talked my time, right. I guess I
won't even pretend to ask a question.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Berman. But it was very
interesting to listen to.
Mr. Goldstein. Can I answer? Earlier, Mr. Gutierrez raised
the question about that very issue and it does need to be
understood that AgJOBS is about the H2-A provisions of the
guest worker program, it is about seasonal jobs that by
definition last 10 months or less. That is not a model for year
round permanent jobs.
Ms. Lofgren. The point that Mr. Berman made very
eloquently.
Mr. Wilson. If I could add to that briefly. In the case
that I talked about, the Sam Kane Beef Company, the Bush
administration Labor Department approved those temporary
workers for what they described as the ``11-month meat cutting
season,'' something which we are completely unfamiliar with.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. The point is
well taken.
Mr. Berman. It is the Lent month without meat.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Delahunt. I will be very brief. I thank Professor
Berman for his customary illumination. I think it is
difficult--I think the whole immigration issue has to be put
into the context of the globalization of the economy, if you
will, and I think it is Mr. Hiatt that talked about the
benefits of globalization seeming to get stuck with a very
small slither of the population, whether it be domestically or
internationally.
We talk about the flow of labor back and forth over
national boundaries. I found it interesting that President Fox
from Mexico felt comfortable making the statement by the year
2020, there will be no immigration into the United States
because the Mexican economy will absorb; will have need for a
much more expanded workforce. I would be interested in your
comments on that particular statement. But at the same time,
and I pose this to those of you in the labor movement, what is
happening in terms of the globalization of the union movement.
There was an interesting piece by Harold Meyerson back
about a month ago talking about unions for a global economy and
the mergers going on between two British unions, and I think it
is the steel workers. If the benefits of trade, of the global
economy are going to be allocated and diffused throughout
societies, isn't it going to be necessary for the organized
labor movement to go global, and when is it going to happen?
Are there any visionaries left in the organized--within the
labor movement to proceed in that direction?
Mr. Hiatt. Congressman, there is a lot of interesting work
going on in terms of the globalization of the labor movement.
The example you mentioned, there was a long article about it a
couple of weeks ago in The Financial Times about the steel
workers and a couple of those British unions. Even in less
formal ways, there is collaboration going on between unions and
the labor movements in the various countries on trade, on world
migration, and on a lot of these other issues, how to deal with
multinational companies.
I think the point that you made is very good, and the point
that several of you have made about the tie into trade is
critical because until we have raised the labor standards in
all these countries, which is at the heart of our trade policy
and our brother and sister trade union movements' trade
policies, then there will be a magnet effect in the immigration
policies of different countries where employers will have it
easy exploring labor. That is the connection.
Mr. Delahunt. Let me see if I can reframe it. I hear from
those that are most concerned about immigration and the hordes
of immigrants that are invading the country that they would be
wise to advocate for trade agreements that incorporate labor
standards and advocate on behalf of the globalization, if you
will, of labor movements. It would be, I think, an interesting
effort if we could work together in terms of pushing that
agenda forward. It will be interesting to see as we proceed
with this how ardent they are in terms of helping workers in
other countries so that we don't find ourselves in this
particular conundrum.
Mr. Feinstein. If I can add, I certainly agree with that,
as Mr. Hiatt said, the labor movement is certainly cognizant of
what you are saying and waking up to the fact that employers
are global employers, and right now the president of the
service employees union is in China, and I hear recently in the
last week, another officer of the union was in Mexico. I think
there is an increasing recognition that it is absolutely
critical that the labor movement itself globalize.
Mr. Goldstein. Just very briefly, The New York Times today,
page 3 has an article about the Farm Labor Organizing Committee
organizing in Mexico, and a terrible price being paid for it,
but it is necessary to be done.
Mr. Delahunt. I look forward to the Ranking Member and
others in the minority on this Committee advocating in the
future for labor standards in trade agreements.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chairman
of our Committee, Mr. Conyers, we had reserved time for your
opening statement, if you wish to give one and you also have
your opportunity to ask questions, Mr. Conyers, should you wish
to do so now.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you. It seems like, among the Democrats
and the Congress, the biggest problem is guest workers. It
seems like among the Republicans the biggest problem is how do
we deal with the 12 million that are here. And I would like to
look at the guest worker problem with you because that is the
one that is troubling to me.
Before I do that, I wanted Dr. Briggs to know I received
his letter and his article. I have glanced at the letter and
not read the article, but I will be back in touch with you and
we will continue our discussion. You shocked me by saying that
you were against NAFTA because they didn't include labor
immigrant--immigration issues. I was against it for that reason
and many more. So there may be points in this discussion that
may be more common between us than meets the eye.
Mr. Briggs. Sure.
Mr. Conyers. A hypocritical term, a guest worker, no
rights. It is almost involuntary servitude. It is an
embarrassment to the Nation. And here is a nearly evenly
divided Congress trying to work out the perfect solution which
obviously, if and when I write a bill, it might contain a lot
of things that are just not reasonably do-able.
But give me a brief take on the guest worker provisions
with my friends of labor, would you please.
Mr. Hiatt. Congressman, we completely agree with you, it is
a hypocritical concept and especially when, as Congressman
Berman was saying, we are talking about coming in for work that
is not just for a brief guest period, but a long-term period,
and that is what is so much now of the legislation being
considered would be. We believe that it is a concept that is
contrary to everything this country stands for, both in terms
of the workplace, and in terms of the community as well, the
notion that people would be expected to come in and not put
down roots in their communities.
In our proposal, we appreciate the notion that there need
to be alternatives to the magnet of illegal immigration. So I
think that the motivation among many people is fine, but I
think that you can fix it in a much better way. In the case of
permanent work, we should look at the green card program that
exists now, the permanent visa program. If there are permanent
jobs in certain industries where there really is a need and not
just a question of trying to attract workers in to work for
substandard wages and benefits, then bring them in but bring
them in on a permanent basis with all of the rights of
permanency from the beginning. It doesn't do any good to say
there with will be a path for permanency 3 years down the road
or 6 years. That may be fine for that individual at some point,
but for the system, it doesn't a do any good because the
employers are still able to game the system and drive down
standards during that period of time. That is the problem with
the guest worker concept.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Feinstein.
Mr. Feinstein. I think we essentially agree with what was
just said. SCIU and UNITE HERE do not favor a guest worker
program; they are strongly opposed to it. They recognize the
need for future workers in this country, and that system has to
be based on certain fundamental principles. They are quite
consistent with what was just said.
Workers coming to this country in the future must be able
to stay. They must have that option. There must be labor
protections that are the equivalent to every other American
worker. There must be mobility. Future workers have to be able
to move from one employer to the next. And there must be an
accurate way of determining what is the appropriate number and
level of people who should be awarded the opportunity to come
to this country. Those are all critical elements in any kind of
program of new workers.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. I agree with what my colleagues have said, I
think the problem, and I think you hit the nail on the head, is
that existing programs are shameful. They are a scandal that if
anyone would look at, it would make all of us ashamed. But I
think the problem is that despite writing strong enforcement
provisions into the law, the truth of the matter is they are
not enforced and what happens in the real world is people are
abused and exploited.
In spite of the best intentions of the things that Congress
has done, and there is a real disconnect between what we would
like to have happen for the future and the way people are
really treated in the workplace.
Mr. Conyers. Mr. Goldstein.
Mr. Goldstein. Well, guest worker programs have obviously
been extraordinarily problematic. In agriculture, they are kind
of exhibit A for this country, farm workers are exhibit A on
how guest worker programs tend to operate. There needs to be a
lot more protections, and they are not in a lot of these
proposals. I do think that the United Farm Workers Union, for
years, has--well, some of us farm workers advocates, we prefer
to abolish guest worker programs altogether, but there is a
certain reality that sometimes you have to face, some people
disagree with that proposal, and so the United Farm Workers
Union has reached a reasonable compromise on agriculture jobs.
Mr. Conyers. Dr. Briggs.
Mr. Briggs. I believe the guest worker program is fatally
flawed and I gave testimony before the Senate 3 years ago on
this precise issue. I will send you a copy of that, too. Every
immigration commission has said no more guest worker programs
and listed all the reasons why these programs cannot be made to
work. If there is one thing that the research is overwhelming
on, it is no guest worker programs. With the past experiences,
these things cannot be made to work. I would urge you to go
back to the Jordan Commission, that is the best study ever done
on immigration, and the research done to back up their
recommendations. All of them overwhelmingly said no guest
worker programs.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you. Mr. Serbon.
Mr. Serbon. Thank you. In my opinion, what reason would an
American employer employ American citizens when they can
constantly get a flow of cheap labor, if you want to call it
that. These people will be exploited. You get 2 years and you
are gone. They can constantly turn over their workforce. I have
gone to jobs where the whole workforce was immigrants, illegal
or legal, whatever, but if they can constantly get new workers
every 2 years and get rid of the old ones, you are not getting
any benefits, when you are here, you leave, and it is just
abuse in my eyes, and I don't like to see anybody abused and I
believe this system would be abused, and also I believe that it
seems like H1-B is a program that every time you turn around
they are trying to increase the numbers and this is what will
happen with this program in my eyes.
Mr. Conyers. I can't believe my ears that all of you almost
agreed with each other. That is an amazing situation. Of
course, you know the pragmatic problem is that we need a
zillion people to do the seasonal work, and isn't that, Mr.
Goldstein, the real thing that keeps us from all doing what we
all agree ought to be done? Is that just about it? When you
come--I mean, the agriculture people would hemorrhage if they
heard this testimony and that we had enough people in Congress
to really put this program in jeopardy.
Mr. Goldstein. Right. Of the 2\1/2\ million farm workers,
1.4 million of them are undocumented. So if you deport every
one of them, I don't know what agribusiness is going to do,
create a guest worker program to provide them foreign labor so
we can produce our fruits and vegetables? I don't know. To me,
it seems likes AgJOBS is a realistic response to a situation:
you offer people who are here on undocumented status working in
agriculture and can prove it and are not criminals, give them
the chance to learn illegal immigration status by working 3 to
5 years in agriculture. It is good for employees, its good for
the country, it is good for workers.
Mr. Briggs. The problem is if you keep giving agriculture a
source of extra labor. As the Voss Commission pointed out, the
fundamental program in agricultural labor, is the people can't
earn a decent income. The people that work in the industry are
kept at poverty levels. If you add more workers into that
industry, even seasonally, you simply reduce the opportunities
for overtime, you keep no pressure for wages ever too go up,
and you make it a self-fulfilling prophecy that American
workers won't do this work. If we had to rely on the market,
wages would go up. Farm labor costs are an incidental, minor
part of final products costs----
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired. I think we
have concluded but there is a unanimous consent request that
Mr. Berman, the author of the AgJOBS bill, be allowed to ask
one question. Without objection, that request is granted.
Mr. Berman. Could I extend that the unanimous consent
request just to make a parenthetical comment?
Ms. Lofgren. If you make it part of your question, yes.
Mr. Berman. The reason AgJOBS--there is only one reason
that I was involved with a bill that didn't repeal the H2-A
program, it is because I couldn't have passed such a bill. And
my question really for--and the union went through a tortuous
problem of accepting certain things that are an anathema to
them in order to get something that was more important.
My question to Mr. Hiatt, Mr. Feinstein and Mr. Wilson is
in our search to try--if the five of us and Ms. Sanchez and Mr.
Delahunt had the power to write this bill, so much of what you
said I agree with completely, we would do it. If the
consequence of--I want you to deal with the consequences of
what is going on right now in the effort to bring up the wages
of low paid workers and hold certain industries in the United
States, in the world, we are dealing with in this Congress,
with this Administration in our pursuit of the most sensible,
rational logical approach to achieve our values and goals, we
end up with nothing happening, and what does that mean for
working people in this country and the country?
Mr. Hiatt. Congressman, I think if we were talking only
about agricultural jobs----
Mr. Berman. I am talking about the whole.
Mr. Hiatt. I understand. A political compromise that had to
include the continuation of temporary guest worker programs,
and we could try to get as many of the protections that, for
example, we have all agreed to with the immigrant rights
groups, all the labor movement that has been submitted today
through the leadership conference on civil rights, there may be
a compromise there that we could live with, but what is so
different here that you pointed out, Bruce Goldstein pointed
out a few moments ago, and I wish I had responded to Mr.
Gutierrez about is how the political compromise that is under
discussion now extends the guest worker concept to permanent
jobs, not just to seasonal and short-term ones.
So our answer to your question would be that leaving people
worse off today, leaving our U.S.-born workers and immigrant
workers worse off today under that type of compromise, would be
worse than with no bill at all. We would rather wait and fight
next year, or in 2009, for a bill that does not move us
backwards.
Mr. Feinstein. If I could say that the question you pose is
obviously an enormously important one. The status quo is simply
not acceptable. It is unacceptable in all the many ways in
which have been described today, and it is a condition that
needs to be changed.
As to whether or not there is sufficient space in this
political environment to make the kind of changes that are
necessary, that is the question of the moment. What is going on
in the Senate, the debate in the Senate gives us all enormous
concern. But I would say this, that the fact that the
leadership of this Committee, the Members of this Committee are
in the middle of this process gives some encouragement and hope
that if anybody could do it, we are certainly hopeful that you
can.
Mr. Wilson. The challenges of how to do a political
compromise on immigration are enormous. They always have been.
And I think the main problem with the compromise that is out
there now is it really is a question of whether we are better
off with this or better off without this. The challenge we face
is at every step along the way is to offer the kinds of
suggestions that can improve it, hoping that it will get better
and fearing that it might not.
I don't have an answer for you, but the most critical part
I would say that we would have to include is to make sure that
there is the kind of enforcement that really happens, not just
from the government, but give people a private right of action.
You have got to do that because the existing regime, not just
the existing Administration, but the existing regime, is not
going to make it happen. We are going to have more scandals in
guest worker programs in the future just as we do today.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has again expired.
Actually, all time has expired. I would like to thank all of
the witnesses for their testimony today. Without objection
Members will have 5 legislative days to submit any additional
written questions for you which we will forward, and we ask
that you answer as promptly as you can so that those questions
can be made part of the record. Without objection, the record
will remain open for 5 legislative days for the submission of
any additional materials. I think this hearing today has helped
a great deal to illuminate the issues that we have before us.
It is actually extremely interesting that in many points, the
Democratic and the Republican witnesses see this in the same
way, and our challenge will be to move forward with a
comprehensive immigration reform bill that addresses these very
important issues successfully. So we do thank you for your
testimony and your time and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:57 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
``The AFL-CIO's Model for `Future Flow': Foreign Workers Must Have Full
Rights,'' submitted by Jonathan Hiatt, General Counsel, American
Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
``Q&As on AFL-CIO's Immigration Policy,'' submitted by Jonathan Hiatt,
General Counsel, American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
``AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement: Responsible Reform of
Immigration Laws Must Protect Working Conditions for all Workers in the
U.S.,'' submitted by Jonathan Hiatt, General Counsel, American
Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
``Fundamental Worker Protections in Foreign Temporary Worker Programs''
by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, May 2007
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
``Graft Mars the Recruitment of Mexican Guest Workers'' by Elisabeth
Malkin, The New York Times, May 24, 2007, page 3
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
``Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States,'' by
Mary Bauer, the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2007
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Terence M. O'Sullivan, Laborers' International
Union of North America (LIUNA) General President, May 24, 2007
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]