Amnesty needed

Bush “Guest Worker” Program a Trojan Horse to Bust Labor

by David Bacon, contributor

A vision of new rights and legal status seems tantalizingly close to the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

But—no surprise—mixed signals emanate from the White House. And as usual, the new faultlines in the immigration debate are more visible in Los Angeles than anywhere else.

Mexico’s new president, Vicente Fox, has engaged George W. Bush in open dialogue on immigration. This and a new interest on the part of US unions in defending Mexican immigrants, has created a new dynamic.

But as soon as the Capitol press corps began reporting there might be a recommendation for a legalization program for undocumented immigrants, the White House made clear it would support no such move. In fact, the administration backed away so quickly it seemed an orchestrated move designed to show the right wing of the Republican Party it could still call the shots for Bush on immigration.

The more immediate possibility in Congress seems to be a vast expansion of guest worker programs. Legalization would allow undocumented immigrants currently in the country (and conceivably those yet to come) to apply for legal permanent residence. A guest worker program, on the other hand, permits the recruitment of workers in other countries only for temporary jobs in the US, and grants no right to remain. Guest workers have rights on paper, but employers can fire those who protest bad conditions and organize, and can have them deported as well. Last April twenty guest workers in Canada’s program were fired and expelled, after stopping work to protest harassment on an Ontario farm.

Unions, Latinos and Asian/Pacific Islander communities have objected to the guest worker program since the days of the old bracero program, under which growers brought contract farm workers from Mexico during the 1940s and ‘50s. Cesar Chavez could only begin organizing the United Farm Workers when workers became free of the system. Two temporary visa programs still exist in the US, supplying workers to high tech industry and farm laborers to contractors in agriculture.

Agribusiness has pushed hard for expansion of its program. At the end of the last Congressional session, liberal Democrat Howard Berman and Oregon Republican Gordon Smith proposed a legalization program for undocumented farm laborers. In exchange, wage and housing requirements would have been relaxed. The compromise was supported by farm worker unions, who argued that the existing glut of farm labor made it unlikely that growers would use more guest workers, and that some expansion of the program was likely to pass in any case. But at the last moment Texas Republican Senator Phil Gramm, who opposes any amnesty, killed the bill.

With Bush in the White House, growers scrapped last year’s compromise. Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig introduced a new guest worker bill, with no automatic amnesty. Instead, undocumented farm workers would have to work 150 days in each of five years to qualify for permanent residence, a difficult feat for seasonal workers. Only work in the fields would count, the bill requires only the minimum wage, and the government would no longer have to certify a labor shortage to permit importing workers: the grower’s word would do.

“Growers always want to scream ‘shortage,’” Berman said, “but in reality what they want is an oversupply of labor to keep wages down and discourage unionization.”

Other industries now want guest workers too, such as the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which includes the American Health Care Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce.

But progressive union delegates here in Los Angeles reject the idea of guest workers in their industry. “We need amnesty instead,” said Pedro Navarro, an Anaheim delegate who works at Disney’s Paradise. “It’s the only way we’ll be able to work securely, to face the police in our streets, or feel our kids will have real rights in school.”

John Wilhelm, president of Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees (HERE) called guest workers “a terrible idea.” A first-ever committee on immigration and civil rights reported to delegates that “tens of thousands of workers would be [made] hostage, and ultimately destroy wage and working conditions in the hospitality industry.” Instead, a convention here called for a broad legalization and citizenship program, and for repealing employer sanctions: the law which makes it illegal for undocumented workers to hold a job.

In an effort to solidify union ranks across racial lines, HERE has also announced its intention to force hotels to begin hiring Black workers, alleging that in its eagerness to hire immigrants, the industry has erected discriminatory barriers to African-Americans. Wilhelm assailed the failure to hire Blacks in cities like Los Angeles as a “social catastrophe,” while one of the union’s highest Black officers, Isaac Monroe, criticized the labor movement for “its failure to promote the leadership of African-Americans.” But Monroe also warned delegates that “demographic changes are a wakeup call. The movement for immigrant rights is real, it’s important, and it’s our future.”