In It Together

Today's NYT includes a story about a growing rift between hard-line Republican anti-immigrant lawmakers (such as those in AZ's legislature) and Republican employers whose businesses are threatened by employer sanctions and worksite raids.

Raids can and do remove experienced senior low-wage employees and cripple business' ability to meet contracted production requirements. Sanctions aimed at established employers who are trying to comply should be aimed at scofflaw employers, instead, say industry lobbyists.

Well, here's a thought. Now is the time for Democrats, whose votes are essential to moderate Pearce-style employer sanctions, to demand safe workplaces, employer-provided safety equipment, healthcare, and a living wage for all employees in exchange for backing off employer sanctions and instituting a national guestworker program.

We should be doing these things anyway. And don't tell me "we" can't afford them. Let's just reallocate some of the profits now raked off by the top 1% of employees to fairly reimburse the lower 99%.

Stepping up to demand a just, safe, and fair workplace would bring Democrats in line with the legitimate needs of millions of blue-collar workers nationally. At the same time, it would force scofflaw employers to compete fairly with those who do try to observe the law. And not least, it would remove the incentive to hire immigrants illegally. If all workers are paid a living wage and all employers are required to provide safe workspaces, there's no profit in hiring undocumented workers and no way to undercut the jobs of native-born Americans.

I support a guestworker program, but only if it comes with certain conditions. One, it must mandate a living wage, healthcare, safe working conditions, paid leave, and some kind of retirement pay-in. Those aren't luxuries, as the word "benefit" so propagandistically implies. Those are necessities and furthermore, they have been earned by all workers, including the lowest paid. Two, it must tie into renegotiated NAFTAs and CAFTAs and the like, to level the global working field for everyone.

We can get smart and make these demands. Or, we can continue to be buffaloed by the whines of big business and the cons of Bush Republicans and watch our jobs float away to Bombay and what's left of the great American middle class become the majority working poor.

AZ's Guestworker Program: Questions for our Lawmakers

If you believe that employers are utilizing foreign workers (Mexicans, predominantly) to undercut the wage that they would be forced to pay to US citizens if there were no alternative labor source, then you will have questions about SB1482, a guestworker bill pending in the AZ Senate and endorsed by Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano.

Some background considerations: Because this bill raises many of the same questions raised by a new Department of Labor proposed guestworker rule, it's relevant to note that under a Friedmanian/GOP "free market" approach, there would be no guestworker program. The domestic marketplace would determine the wage, and if an Arizona cotton farmer couldn't find cotton pickers for $5/hour, then he might have to pay, oh, I don't know, $25/hr. (Amounts are purely hypothetical, understand.)

But we know, or should, that the "free market" as conceived by Republicans does not include letting the market determine wages. It is weighted to the needs of "bidness," not to the living needs of the people.

That said, we also know that Americans are not likely to receive the inevitable cost passthrough of $25/hr for cotton pickers. I guess that would make a $75 Izod polo shirt cost, what, $200? Just guessing, have no clue. I get my polo shirts for $15 from Mervyns, and I think anybody who doesn't is a moron.

Listen up: You and I, every day, either benefit from the gamed wage/price structure installed by very powerful business interests, or are screwed on purpose by that structure--as in the case of the cost of prescription drugs in the US generally, and under Medicare particularly, and as in the case of flat US wages since 1970. So we are both oppressed victims of the system and its beneficiaries when it comes to produce, for instance. We are not merely innocent bystanders observing the greed of the US employer and the exploitation of the Mexican laborer. We are complicit in his and her exploitation, too. I reckon that our share of the ripoff pales by contrast to the share raked in by the CEO and the shareholders. But still.

So. If you both care about the capability of the US worker to earn a genuine living wage, AND the Mexican workers' vulnerability to rank exploitation in termns of payment and working and living conditions, then you have a duty to ask your legislator some tough questions.

1. How does the bill define "labor shortage" and who decides?
2. What measures are in place to prevent AZ employers from utilizing cheap foreign labor to undercut market-based wages for native workers?
3. What safeguards are in place to ensure decent working and living conditions of guestworkers and native workers equally and alike?
4. What safeguards are in place to prevent the wages paid to guestworkers from eliminating native workers qualified for an interested in equivalent positions
5. What criteria ensure that AZ employers have genuinely been unable to hire native workers at a fair, living wage given the conditions of the jobs involved?

This is, given the present state of capitalism, a matter of balance or the whole house of cards will collapse. It does no good to pretend otherwise. At the same time, every reputable measure indicates that worker productivity in the USA is going heavily to benefit the CEO and scarecely at all to benefit the worker. I am sure that there is a lot of manuverability in this sum/zero equation. I am sure beyond any doubt that we can effect a sum/sum equation, and that our collective future depends on our doing just that, here and in every sector of the market. It's the job of our elected lawmakers to ensure that this happens. If they don't do it voluntarily, it's our job to make sure they do it anyway.

Homeland Security and Labor Seek to Strip Worker Rights from H-2A Visa Program

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)has an important resource on US guestworker programs. The title says it all: "Close to Slavery." And that was before this, from Interfaith Worker Justice:

Department of Labor Worsens Plight of Farmworkers
Interfaith Worker Justice just became aware of new rules that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) want to propagate in order to help agribusiness hire more guest workers to harvest crops. The rules, which were crafted with input from farm operators but none from farmworker unions or advocates, would eliminate existing rights under the H-2A visa program for agricultural workers and worsen already deplorable labor conditions.

IWJ has drafted a letter to DOL Secretary Elaine Chao and is gathering signatures for the letter from religious leaders. Here is the text of the letter:

November 7, 2007

Dear Ms. Chao,

We write to you with concern for the rights of farmworkers in the U.S. The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security have proposed new rules to increase the number of agricultural guest workers and relax regulations concerning pay, housing, and other issues, according to recent stories in the New York Times (“U.S. Seeks Rules to Allow Increase in Guest Workers”) and the Los Angeles Times (“U.S. lets in more immigrants for farms”). These rules are intended to address the labor shortage caused by increased border security measures and the cumbersome H-2A visa process.

As people of faith concerned about maintaining adequate standards for all workers, we question this rush to relax regulations and government oversight in the interests of profitable agribusiness associations and farms. Moreover, these rules would go against the express mission of the Department of Labor to promote workers’ welfare and improve work conditions.

The H-2A program as it exists contains some labor protections, which, while inadequate, must not be compromised. For instance, the requirement that employers must advertise for jobs provides an opportunity for citizens and legal residents to work in this industry, without a mere assertion by growers that no non-immigrant workers are available. U.S. citizens or legal residents will always fill productive jobs if they receive adequate pay and benefits. If the majority of farm workers are undocumented, it is because employers choose to use an exploitable and cheaper source of labor.

Rather than administrative rule-making that worsens labor conditions, the administration should support the AgJOBS legislation, a bipartisan bill that was the result of difficult but productive negotiations between the agricultural industry and farm workers unions. The bill includes a reasonable path to legalization for agricultural guest workers, while helping to insure an adequate supply of labor to farms.

As people of faith, we are called to uphold the dignity of every worker and every human being. We urge you to work with us in asking Congress to pass the AgJOBS bill and in ceasing to consider rules that would lead to greater exploitation of farm workers in the United States.

We thank you for your consideration of this important matter.