AFL-CIO position on Illegal Immigration ( Protectionisits beware)

Here it is in all it's glory. I am posting this here because I am sick of the fakes who claim to speak for labor telling labor what it should do. Hopefully those that have fallen for "they steal our jobs" might learn a thing or to. Perhaps they themselvs will take a reading to history and learn a thing or to.

What Union Members Should Know About . . .
The AFL-CIO Policy on Immigration

The AFL-CIO proudly stands on the side of
immigrant workers. Immigrant workers are an
extremely important part of our nation’s economy,
our nation’s union movement and our nation’s
communities. In many ways, the new AFL-CIO
immigration policy signals a return of the union
movement to its historical roots. It is increasingly clear
that if the United States is to have an immigration
system that really works, it must be simultaneously
orderly, responsible and fair. The policies of both the
AFL-CIO and our country must reflect those goals.


The United States is a nation of laws. This means the
federal government has the sovereign authority and
constitutional responsibility to set and enforce limits
on immigration. It also means our government has
the obligation to enact and enforce laws in ways that
respect due process and civil liberties, safeguard
public health and safety and protect the rights and
opportunities of workers.


The current system is broken

Unfortunately, the current system of immigration
enforcement, while failing to stop the flow of
undocumented people into the United States, is
causing workplace discrimination against
immigrants and minorities, particularly
undocumented workers. The current system leaves
unpunished unscrupulous employers who exploit
undocumented workers and retaliate against them
when they join with other workers to assert their
rights, thus denying labor rights for all workers.


This system of workplace immigration enforcement
in the United States, with its emphasis on the I-9
system, is broken, targets workers instead of the
egregious employers who exploit them and needs to
be fixed.

Labor’s principles

We believe the following principles should form our
national immigration policy. Specifically:

• Undocumented workers and their families
make enormous contributions to their communities
and workplaces and should be provided
permanent legal status through a new legalization
program;
• Employer sanctions and the I-9 system should
be replaced with a system that targets and
criminalizes employers who recruit undocumented
workers from abroad for economic
gain;
• Immigrant workers should have full workplace
rights, including the right to organize and protections
for whistle-blowers;
• Government safety net benefits are important
for all workers, and those unfairly taken away
by Congress in 1996 should be restored.
• Labor and business together should design
mechanisms to meet legitimate needs for new
workers without compromising the rights and
opportunities of workers already here; and
• Guest worker programs should be reformed
but not expanded.

The AFL-CIO supports a broad legalization program
that makes no distinction based on country of origin
and that allows undocumented workers and their
families who have been working hard, paying taxes
and contributing to their communities the
Defending the Rights of Immigrant Workers
opportunity to adjust to permanent legal resident
status. We should recognize that one of the reasons
for undocumented immigration is that our current
legal immigration system for family members and
for workers is in shamefully bad shape. A broad
legalization program providing permanent residence
status, rather than a large new guest worker program,
should be the focus of our efforts.

The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions will work
vigilantly with our coalition partners representing the
immigrant, ethnic, faith and civil rights communities
to ensure that comprehensive legislation providing
for legalization and the enforcement of workplace
rights for all workers is introduced in Congress and
ultimately signed into law.

History has proven that mistreatment of one group in
a workplace ultimately will lead to the mistreatment
of all workers. We must be mindful of and learn
from the history of oppression that many U.S.
workers have faced, in particular the long struggle of
African American workers. All workers must
understand the difference that unions make for
workers, whether it is a living wage, better benefits
or a safer work environment.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/civilrights/immigration/up...

Are you drinking the Corporate Republican kool-aid?

That's an accusation that is very anti-labor and most certainly does not reflect the AFL-CIO position on trade
or even illegal aliens.

The AFL-CIO is NOT for open borders or free trade agreements with no worker protections AND is against the Senate bill
due to the H-2C Visa

The AFL-CIO DPE is against the Senate bill due to the H-1B Visa.

They are not for removing them entirely. They want limitations put on them. The H-1B visas have nothing to do with illegal immigration. It is a guest worker program that allows workers to come here legally.

They want what H-1B worker that are in the country now to have full rights afforded to citizens.

Reform The H-1B and L-1 Guest Worker Visa Programs
August 06, 2003

Chicago, Ill.
In the current recession—unlike previous economic downturns—a growing number of well-educated and highly skilled U.S. professional and technical workers have found themselves in the long lines of the unemployed. They and their families have not only been battered by the economic trauma of being out of work, but increasingly they are finding themselves victimized by dysfunctional U.S. guest worker policies. For many—particularly workers in high tech—these policies have made a bad situation much worse.



Under current law, employers, especially in high tech, are abusing temporary visa programs to allow hundreds of thousands of guest workers with no rights and no job security to take job opportunities in the United States, when workers in this country are unemployed and even being laid off. There are now more than a million of these workers in the United States under the two largest guest worker programs, H-1B and L-1. Yet neither of these programs connects in any way to the realities of the U.S. labor market and our rising unemployment rate.



Worse, both programs are rife with fraud and abuse and are being used by unscrupulous corporations to displace America’s workers and exploit guest workers. Under these programs, guest workers must depend on their employers not only for a job, but also for their legal status. Employers also have the power to renew guest worker visas at their pleasure. This creates an unequal relationship inherently subject to abuse, in which employers have the upper hand to intimidate guest workers who seek better wages and working conditions, seek to join a union or complain of discrimination. Employers can retaliate by threatening to end these guest workers’ employment and thus their visas, or by threatening to deny the renewal of visas in the future.



This year, Congress must take action to clean up the problems that plague these programs by implementing urgently needed reforms.



The H-1B Temporary Guest Worker Program



In effect since 1990, the H-1B program originally was designed to permit a modest number of professional and technical guest workers into the United States each year to alleviate spot shortages in our labor market. However, in 1998 and again in 2000—despite AFL-CIO opposition—Congress drastically expanded the program, even as widespread reports of exploitation and abuse of U.S. and H-1B guest workers were surfacing. Later this year, the previous legislation will sunset and thereby reduce the number of visas to the original yearly limit of 65,000 that was in effect prior to 1998. The AFL-CIO supports this reduction, but other reforms are also needed:

To make the program truly “temporary,” H-1B visas should be limited to one non-renewable three-year term.
The program must include explicit prohibitions against replacement of U.S. workers and must strictly tie the entry of any and all H-1Bs to U.S. labor market conditions to minimize the impact on all professional workers.
The existing “attestation” system—a sort of honor code whereby employers assert they have searched for qualified U.S. workers and are paying H-1B workers prevailing wages and benefits—should be replaced with real safeguards that protect both domestic and foreign guest workers.
The number of guest workers per company must be limited. Only the primary employer—with a specific, full-time job opening—should be eligible to make application for an H-1B visa. In higher education, the primary employer may make application for job openings consistent with the unique employment terms and conditions in that industry.
H-1B workers must have an independently verified college degree equivalent to a U.S. degree, demonstrated experience in the field for which they are being hired and must have achieved licensure in the occupations that require it.
With the exception of employment in higher education, H-1B workers who are laid off for legitimate reasons must return to their home country within 90 days. Misuse of the "portability" of H-1B visas that allows foreign guest workers to compete against unemployed U.S. professionals who also are looking for work should be prohibited. Employers should not be permitted to lay off or otherwise terminate workers on H-1B visa for asserting their rights under federal and state laws, including their right to union representation. In higher education, workers on H-1B visa who do not work during one semester of 120 days, whichever is longer, shall not be considered on “layoff.”
The coverage and protections of all applicable federal and state labor laws should be made available to H-1B workers, including the right to forum unions.
U.S.-trained foreign graduate students seeking to adjust their status should be given preferential rights for obtaining H-1B employment visas.
The provision must be retained in current law that exempts the H-1B workers at U.S. colleges and universities from being counted under the H-1B caps but there must be assurances that all other current or future requirements, such as protections of the H-1B employees’ labor rights and domestic workers’ non-displacement rights, apply.
Regarding agency oversight, the Department of Labor and successor agency for the Immigration and Naturalization Service—the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services—need to ramp up enforcement. However, since this program directly affects the U.S. labor market as well as workers, primary oversight responsibilities should reside with the Labor Department. That agency must be given adequate oversight and enforcement authority, as well as sufficient resources to end program abuses, enforce the law and protect the interests of U.S. and guest workers alike. If necessary, additional funds should be allocated by statute from the $1,000 H-1B visa fee to enhance these enforcement functions.



The current system encourages H-1B workers to keep quiet or look for another job rather than file complaints about exploitation. The Labor Department should be given the authority to begin affirmative enforcement through random and “profiled” audits as well as through response to complaints. In addition, the Labor Department must be given the authority to initiate investigations of suspected misconduct without having to wait for a complaint to be filed. H-1B employees should be given “whistle blower protections” when they file non-frivolous complaints with the Labor Department. W-2 forms for H-1B workers should be reviewed to ensure that employers are paying the required wage and have not cut workers’ hours illegally. More punitive sanctions, including debarment from the program, must be authorized for any employer or visa petitioner who violates statutory mandates.

I happen to be a labor activist on the H-1B increases.

We want the levels the same no escalator and most importantly we want the Pascrell bill passed.

Maybe you can save some other people's jobs, I understand they are trying to do the same thing to Nurses now. I think for IT and Engineers, it is too little, too late. What they couldn't import, they simply moved in-toto away to India. H-1B Visas have done more to undermine the middle class in this Country than anything else I can think of, off hand.

And, as distasteful as I find it to say this, the AFL-CIO is (rightfully) scared and is looking for ways to boost membership. In their desperation, they've chosen to pander to a hot-button group...illegal immigrants.

Unions used to stand for American families having access to safe working conditions, a fair wage, and representation for wronged workers.

Corporate America has worked very hard to minimize union influence...and it's succeeded. Now, the AFL-CIO is reduced to pandering to the very people it's origins demand it fight...illegal imigrants who are taking American jobs.

There seems to be a national epidemic in this regard...has EVERY pro-little-guy organization in the nation lost its testes?

History has proven that mistreatment of one group in
a workplace ultimately will lead to the mistreatment
of all workers. We must be mindful of and learn
from the history of oppression that many U.S.
workers have faced, in particular the long struggle of
African American workers. All workers must
understand the difference that unions make for
workers, whether it is a living wage, better benefits
or a safer work environment.

Perhaps you would do well to read up on the history of labor movements in this country. Whoever wrote this certainly did their research and it's only going to get better. Labor benefits from solidarity.

It's really that simple. Martin Neimoller's wisdom extends much further beyond the effects of silence. The exploitation of one worker means the exploitation of all workers.

...of, maybe, it's a difference of philosophy.

FACT: The AFL-CIO has lost three of its largest unions; IBT, SEIU and UFCW.

FACT: The AFL-CIO, if it intends to retain its "king of unions" status needs to do two things...consolidate and grow its base (something at which its failed miserably) or find a new group of potential members to appeal to.

CONJECTURE: Illegal immigrants are an easy sell and the fit the bill...

Regardless, the AFL-CIO has chosen to embrace a group of people who are currently undermining the efforts of its members.

I don't think it's vision, I think it's desperation.

http://www.teamster.org/action/political/06agenda.htm
Support Immigration Reform. The Teamsters Union supports legislation that would permit earned legalization for certain workers who have been in the United States and contributing to the economy for many years. We support the right of these workers to join a union, and we support efforts to remove the ability of employers to use threats and intimidation of immigrant workers to thwart organizing drives. The Teamsters Union will continue to oppose efforts to expand high tech and other temporary guestworker visa programs that may not only be unnecessary, but also forces U.S. workers to unfairly compete with lower paid workers who have no rights or benefits.


You're assuming motivation which does not make for a good cause and effect argument. The CIO has a long standing history of inclusion. It worked for rather well for them when these guys were taking beatings from corporate thugs.

It will work now.

Official Statement Of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa

April 7, 2006

(Washington, D.C.) — I am pleased the Senate rejected cloture today on an enforcement-only bill put forward by Majority Leader Bill Frist. This legislation is similar to the damaging bill that was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. An enforcement-only approach would do nothing to address the fact that we have millions of undocumented immigrants currently living in the country.

Yesterday, Senators Martinez and Hagel reached a compromise with members on both sides of the aisle. Due to disagreements on how to address the more than 300 amendments that were filed, the Senate is now stalled on this important debate. Senators promise to continue to work on this legislation during the recess so that the Senate can pass a final immigration comprehensive bill this session.

While many thought that the Martinez-Hagel compromise was fair and acceptable, the Teamsters Union finds it to be shortsighted and problematic.

First, it contains the same, flawed guest worker program that the Teamsters Union opposes. We do not support an expanded new guest worker program that would allow almost half a million new guest workers to enter the country each year, indefinitely.

Time and again, it has been proven that guest worker programs lead to the exploitation of workers. These workers are captive to their employer and often exploited. Guest workers are often times paid less than their U.S. counterparts, which brings wages down for everyone. A modern day “Bracero” program is not what the United States needs.

Also, the earned legalization language in the compromise is incomplete. To divide undocumented immigrants into three categories, treating each group differently, is not a real solution to our broken immigration policies.

The Teamsters Union calls on the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform that includes smart border security, earned legalization for the 12 million undocumented workers currently here, and no guest worker program.

What I like less than the decision itself is the motivation behind it. The AFL-CIO is attempting to flood this country with unskilled labor just to increase its membership rolls.

I have a problem with that.

aligning with the cheap corporate labor lobby I think they are shooting themselves in the foot.

If they actually shut down illegal immigration then maybe, but I honestly think the corporations will fight that tooth and nail
since their ultimate agenda is to control labor markets and people across national boundaries.

They are advocating for these people to have the same rights you and I have? They are attacking the exploitation at it's head!!!!

Have you seen their petition against China's cheap labor practices?

This is the ground work for a global labor movement. One that is based on class struggle instead or racism and nationalism. Of course corporations are going to fight that. They'd rather we all remain divided so they can exploit labor on the other side of that border.

The same border many people are talking about strengthening. We used to be divided by race in this country (In many ways we still are) and it was the CIO that overcame those boundaries. They built a strong labor movement as a result.

We are now divided by nationalism and Corporations are working on the government level to exploit us all. The exploitation of workers in China, Mexica, Cambodia and Indonesia effects labor here. We need to wor to overcome those boundaries to create a new labor movement as well as a civil rights movement.

You might like this article!!!

RACISM, ORGANIZED LABOR,
AND THE BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLE
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/contours/1.1/honey.html

supporting massive H-1B Visa increases, H-2B, L-1, F-4 and refusing to support legsilation to stop worker exploitation
plus supporting the massive H-2C, refusing to support employer sanctions and awarded social security benefits that there
is no way, no where they can be verified and ignores the crisis in personal ID theft
is supporting the cheap labor corporate lobby.

This is not an "either/or" argument. It's not an "open border" or "deportation" argument.

Unfortunately you're trying to frame it as such.

Labor economics and the health of a labor market is DEPENDENT upon national immigration policy and national law.

Unions have to come up with strategies that get wealth and political power in the hands of workers, and perpetuating a system pits American workers against foreign workers is only going to create pools of easy-to-exploit people which will help increase the power of the same groups of people who are trying to weaken American workers.

What you see as loosing its testes I see as labor grasping the big picture of how you can longer draw boundaries between the interests of American workers and the interests of foreign-born working people in a world where capital flows so easily across borders.

It sure isn't assisting corporations gain control of labor markets, trade people as their agenda is in WTO, GATS mode 4,
classifying people as "commodities to be traded", forcing the mass migration across national boundaries of peoples in order
to gain control over domestic labor markets and supercede national law and labor rights.

They ARE working to obtain worker protections and supporting/organizing labor unions across the globe and US policy makes that
difficult.

Corporations play nation-states against each other by moving the goods of production to whatever country enables them to exploit
workers the most and nation-states do not stand up to these bullies and support their people.

Aren't immigrants little guys too? I guess someone only gets to call themselves and "American" worker if they've been in this country a few generations?
Maybe the AFL-CIO understands that the best way to take away that cheap labor force from corporations is to unionize that cheap labor force. Organizing immigrants is a continuation of what unions always have and should stand for. I would rather they do that than pander to xenophobes.

Thanks for the post. So frustrating to have so many Democrats buy into the right wing frame.

If the Republicans said that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow, agreeing with them isn't "buying into a right wing frame"...