Linda Chavez-Thompson: It's Time To End Worker Exploitation

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2007/06/05/labor-immigrants-workers-oped-cx_lct_0606labor.html

It's Time To End Worker Exploitation
Linda Chavez-Thompson 06.06.07, 6:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON -

Growing up in western Texas as the daughter of cotton sharecroppers, I spent my summers weeding cotton, five days a week, 10 hours a day, in 95-degree heat. As grueling as this workload was, others had it even worse.

For foreign workers toiling as "guest workers" (or "braceros") alongside us in the cotton fields, the five-day work week was an impossible luxury. They were often stiffed on wages, and health care was simply non-existent. Viewing them as units of production, employers worked them to their limit, knowing that the following season a fresh unsuspecting batch would arrive.



The horrific abuses suffered by workers in programs such as the bracero program are well documented and indisputable. And although most people like to think of bracero programs as a phenomenon of the past, the reality is that their legacy of exploitation and abuse continues to thrive in contemporary American society through modern guest worker programs such as the H2-A and H2-B.

Like undocumented workers, "guest workers" in this country face enormous obstacles in enforcing their labor rights.

The H-2 guest worker programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, do construction and work in the seafood industry, among other jobs. Workers typically borrow large amounts of money to pay travel expenses, fees and even bribes to recruiters. That means that before they even begin to work, they are indebted.

According to a new study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year's worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20% a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral.

FULL story at link.

[thethinker]

1. Important article

The article goes on to say:

"The exploitation of immigrant workers hurts us all. When standards are driven down for some workers, they are driven down for all workers. For this same reason, guest worker programs must be squarely rejected. Because workers in these programs are always dependent on their host employers for both their livelihoods and legal status, these programs create a disenfranchised underclass of workers."

I wonder how many of the folks in congress really know what goes on out there in the real world. They were discussing the immigration bill for weeks, but do they really know what this guest worker program is all about in real life? I doubt they do.

The employers want these type of programs because they can get by with exploiting workers, without repercussions. How many people back them thinking they are helping the immigrants? How does this exploitation help anyone?