The Progressive Response 26 July 1999 Vol. 3, No. 26

Editor: Martha Honey

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The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in PR.

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Table of Contents

*** THE LIMITS OF IMMIGRATION POLICY ***

By Rachael Kamel, American Friends Service Committee

*** FROM INDENTURED "GUESTS" TO NATURALIZED WORKERS ***

By Jonathan Brier, CAUSA

*** THE CAMPAIGN FOR MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS RIGHTS ***

By Stephen Fried, Institute for Policy Studies

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We are coupling this with essays outlining two current campaigns, one based in Oregon and the other in Washington, D.C., involving particular categories of immigrants. One, by Jonathan Brier of CAUSA, argues that the H-2A guestworker program that brings in migrant agricultural laborers should not be expanded because it is being used to replace domestic laborers and ratchet down wages. The other essay, by Stephen Fried of the IPS-based Campaign for Migrant Domestic Workers Rights, argues for the preservation of the A-3 and G-5 visa categories that bring in household workers for diplomats and international civil servants. Because these visas are among the only avenues for poor women from developing countries to legally enter the U.S., the Campaign believes they should continue to operate, but that U.S. labor law protections must be enforced and strengthened .

We hope that these essays will help to stimulate a wider debate on immigration issues and we welcome your reactions and comments. )

*** THE LIMITS OF IMMIGRATION POLICY ***

By Rachael Kamel, American Friends Service Committee

What is immigration policy good for? What is its appropriate scope of action, and what phenomena lie beyond its reach? We at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) believe that these fundamental questions must be addressed before it is possible to evaluate any given policy.

The 1990s have been marked by many complex geopolitical and economic transformations. Among these are the emergence of the United States as the world's sole remaining military superpower, the rapidly accelerating integration of global markets, and unprecedented deregulation of the global movement of capital.

Such phenomena are related to the widening gap between rich and poor on a global scale (both within and between nations), a marked increase in environmental degradation, a decline in food security throughout the developing world, and a parallel decline in living standards and economic security for working people in advanced industrial countries. Some of these are twenty and thirty year trends that only now have entered into broad public awareness in the U.S., while others have been sharply intensified over the past decade, and all are linked together through intricate webs of causation and interaction.

A worldwide increase in displacement and migration, including increased labor migration to the U.S., is also part of this web. Yet none of these phenomena, including migration, are susceptible to control through immigration policy. We believe that the entire debate over whether to restrict, where to restrict, and how to restrict immigration hugely misses the mark.

What policy can determine, in large measure, is the conditions under which immigration will take place. How much or how little of it will be clandestine and fraught with risk? How many political refugees will be turned away at ports of entry, without ever having the opportunity to go before a judge? How many border crossers will drown in the Rio Grande or die of exposure in the Arizona desert? How many undocumented workers will be too fearful to report violations of wage and hour laws or to join in union organizing campaigns? Here, we believe, the weight of all of the arguments--both economic and humanitarian--falls on the side of respect for human rights and dignity as a non-negotiable plank in any progressive platform.

There is a corollary question for all of us, immigrant and native-born alike: how many of our democratic rights and freedoms will we trade away in exchange for spurious schemes to stop "illegal" immigration and international drug trafficking? (Or in exchange for not unrelated and equally spurious promises to "get tough on crime" and "end welfare freeloading"?) In each case, the supposed benefit never arrives, but the bitter costs, which fall most heavily on the most vulnerable, are cemented in place.

We would applaud some points and take issue with others in David Stoll's piece, "The Immigration Debate." But our most fundamental disagreement is with his willingness to enter into a form of horse-trading in which we believe immigrants can only lose. Stoll argues that advocates should "give serious consideration to the national labor identification card," which he offers as a measure that would deflate the political pressure for militarizing the Mexican border. To our minds, this is tantamount to arguing that you can strengthen human rights in one arena by reducing them in another. It may sound plausible in a briefing paper, but in practice it's unworkable.

It is instructive, in this regard, to consider the experience with employer sanctions, which were mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It has been widely documented, including by such agencies as the General Accounting Office (GAO), that employer sanctions resulted in a sharp increase in employment discrimination against people whose names, accents, or appearances were perceived to be foreign. There is equally broad agreement, likewise, that employer sanctions did not result in any decrease in the entry of undocumented workers into the U.S. labor market. Finally, the U.S. experience is echoed on a global scale: according to researcher Saskia Sassen, employer sanctions have failed to achieve their stated goal in every country that has tried them. Worker verification ups the ante of repression for a policy that has already been shown to be unworkable.

Stoll couples his call for a labor ID system with calls for "rigorous enforcement of labor laws" and protection for "the basic human rights of all U.S. residents, legal or not." Yet such a system would inevitably result in a dramatic increase in violations of labor laws and other human rights, because it would foster an underground labor market in which undocumented workers would have no recourse when faced with unscrupulous and exploitative employees.

We think that Stoll is also mistaken in the opposition he sets up in his piece between "labor advocates and environmentalists" on one hand, and "religious activists, humanitarians, and civil libertarians," on the other. Our commitment to human rights is guided not only by our spiritual and ethical values, but also by our understanding of labor market economics. Simply put, wages and working conditions for those at the bottom of the heap--which is where most immigrants are situated--form a floor for all working people. The lower the floor, the more conditions are depressed for everybody. The more immigrant workers are forced into conditions of clandestinity, the greater will be the downward pressure on the entire spectrum.

There have always been tendencies in the labor movement that have sought to defend the prerogatives of more privileged workers against "competition" from the less privileged--whether immigrants, women, or native-born people of color. Likewise, there have always been countervailing tendencies that have worked to build solidarity among all working people, across barriers of race, gender, and nationality. Horizontal hostility, ethnic tensions, and divisions among marginalized communities are realities that must be addressed and ultimately overcome - not enshrined in differential treatment in legislation.

Some of labor's most dynamic representatives--including unions like UNITE, SEIU, or HERE--have recognized that immigrants, like women workers and those drawn from native-born communities of color, represent the hope and the future of the U.S. labor movement. At the same time, it is also true that the AFL-CIO has yet to reverse its official support for employer sanctions [AFL-CIO says it has now stepped back from its proposition of support and has criticized employer sanctions as being discriminatory]. There is no single "labor" view on immigration policy, because this, too, is a site of contention and change.

Finally, we come to the question: what positive alternatives does the Service Committee advance? AFSC, of course, is not primarily a policy advocacy group; our efforts focus on community-based movements for social change. When we see policies that will do great harm to the communities we work with, we oppose them. When we see specific openings to advocate for constructive changes, we take advantage of them--in partnership with the affected communities. We have called, for instance, for the extension of the 245(I) program, which facilitates family reunification; for a permanent amnesty for Central American refugees; and for an end to military patrols at the U.S.-Mexico border (which, following the fatal shooting in April 1997 of a Texas teen, were suspended by the Pentagon). We also work continually at many levels to advocate for greater accountability by immigration officials.

We believe immigrants should be protected by the same basic human and constitutional rights available to all people in the United States, whether or not we think such a stance will fly in Washington. We do so both because of our deeply held values regarding the infinite worth of human life and because of our considered conviction that basic change is made possible primarily through social struggle.

Rachael Kamel is in the Community Relations Division of the American Friends Service Committee, where she served as coordinator of the Mexico-U.S. Border Program from 1995 to 1997.

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*** FROM INDENTURED "GUESTS" TO NATURALIZED WORKERS ***

*** Foreign Contract Labor: From Indentured "Guests" to Naturalized Workers ***

By Jonathan Brier, CAUSA

Contract labor historically has been used by U.S. agribusiness to oversupply growers' labor needs in order to maintain depressed wage rates for agricultural workers. The Bracero Program (Public Law 78), from 1942 to 1964, established a framework in which corporate farm interests could import temporary contract laborers from Mexico under severely exploitative conditions based on fraudulent claims of domestic labor shortages. Founded in response to a field labor shortage brought on by World War II, the program mandated that growers were to calculate how many workers they were lacking, receive certification from the Department of Labor, and then abide by a set of standards governing employer participation. Legally, growers could not displace domestic workers through use of the program.

However, in practice, growers got together in associations and decided at what level the prevailing wage would be set for a particular harvest, ran domestic workers off the jobsite through paltry wages (and often outright intimidation), and then wildly overestimated their "labor shortages" for the coming season. While domestic workers were being replaced, braceros were facing underemployment, bad earnings, deductions from wages, bad food, overcharges, improper records, dangerous work conditions, and sometimes violence from employers.

Despite periods of intense work stoppages and strikes among braceros, division between braceros and domestics (combined with the transience and vulnerability of the bracero to dismissal) rendered these efforts ineffectual and allowed the program to continue unabated until a broad social movement generated enough political pressure to end it. Ultimately, growers turned to other sources of temporary immigrant labor, including the H-2 program, whose provisions were similar to the easily-circumvented bracero regulations--until they were strengthened in 1986.

As part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, the H-2 program became the H-2A program and labor standards required for certification were further strengthened. Regardless of their strength on paper, these protective standards are regularly and easily circumvented by guestworker employers. Jamaican cutters working under H-2A temporary contracts for Florida sugar plantations in the 1980s and early 1990s lived in abysmal housing, were paid sub-minimum wages or had earnings stolen by employers, and often suffered threats of retaliatory firings and/or physical violence. Guestworkers have faced similar conditions picking apples on the East Coast, laying irrigation pipelines in Montana and herding sheep in Idaho. A recent study found that Oregon's second largest nursery, J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co., circumvented fair recruitment procedures in its application for H-2A certification, including discouraging qualified women applicants, failing to offer housing, and failing to advertise real wage rates for higher-paid jobs. Complaints expressed by nursery employees point to a wide range of additional violations of workers' rights, while threats by a company-employed "labor relations consultant" have stifled employee complaints through fomenting workers' fear of retaliation. The larger picture of domestic workers being forced out through stagnant or degraded conditions and a growing climate of retaliation signify the fundamental imbalance that has been created with a workforce segregated between temporary foreign contract employees and domestic workers.

Recently western growers and politicians (primarily from Oregon) launched a campaign to reform and expand the H-2A guestworker program (mostly Mexican workers), predicated on false assumptions about potential widespread labor shortages. Congressional attempts, led by a bipartisan effort by Oregon's representatives including Senator Ron Wyden, a liberal Democrat, to expand use and roll back protective provisions of the H-2A guestworker program effectively seek to guarantee growers a vulnerable, artificially cheap, and unorganized workforce.

Claims of an impending labor shortage were forcefully debunked in a December 1997 General Accounting Office (GAO) study that concluded that there is no present nor foreseeable future shortage of agricultural workers, and that there is in fact, according to the Department of Labor, a substantial farm labor surplus. Unions contend that growers' predictions of possible worker shortages come at a time when organized farm labor has been winning contracts in California, Oregon, Washington and other major agricultural states, and that such efforts are intended to halt these victories. Farmworker advocates and community organizations throughout Oregon have repeatedly advised Wyden not to support any new guestworker legislation.

In light of the dismal record of H-2A employers' respect for workers' rights and the probable negative impacts of new attempts to expand and rollback the H-2A program, U.S. policymakers should pursue a more constructive agenda based on the following objectives:

* No new guest worker program should be considered. Protective regulations exist already in the H-2A program; implementation and enforcement of the current law should be strengthened.

* In order to restore them to 1986 levels, real wages must be increased by 20 percent. Farmworkers' earnings should be based on a living wage: the current base level of pay (Adverse Effect Wage Rate) should be adjusted to reflect a just wage for farmworkers. In the unlikely event of a shortage of workers, agricultural employers should raise wages to attract domestic workers like any non-agricultural employer.

* Employers should be required to offer transportation cost advances to domestic workers (who often lack sufficient funds to reach the job site) which would be repaid from a worker's salary.

* Every H-2A employer should be required to offer family housing regardless of the current prevailing practice. The use of housing allowances, which are no guarantee of adequate shelter at all, should be eliminated.

* More enforcement personnel should be added in the Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor, whose mandate to investigate violations of workers' rights of its own accord should be strengthened.

* Contract labor should be done away with in favor of inviting immigrants into the country when there are shortages of domestic workers. These immigrants should be afforded the opportunity to obtain legal permanent resident status and/or to naturalize as citizens. Temporary labor programs such as H-2A rule out any possibilities for improvements in child care, wages, and housing as growers are allowed to bypass domestic workers in favor of a foreign labor market. Employers should be made to compete in the domestic labor market so that improvements in wages and working conditions can become possible.

Jonathan Brier is research coordinator and field organizer for CAUSA, an Oregon-based coalition for immigrants' rights.

For More Information on Guestworkers:

United Farmworkers of America

Farmworker Justice Fund

Email: [email protected]

Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)

Email: [email protected]

Oregon Law Center

Email: [email protected]

CAUSA

Email: [email protected] ~or~ [email protected]

National Council of La Raza

National Clearinghouse on Guestworker Legislation

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*** THE CAMPAIGN FOR MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS RIGHTS ***

Empowering the Powerless: The Campaign for Migrant Domestic Workers Rights

By Stephen Fried, Institute for Policy Studies

On July 15, the New York Times reported that Ifeoma and Prosper Udogwu, a Nigerian couple in Elmsford, NY, were arrested for allegedly enslaving and physically abusing for nine years a Nigerian teenager. Despite the widespread shock and disbelief that such a situation could exist, the Udogwu case in fact represents only the most recent example of domestic worker abuse, which usually remains hidden behind the closed doors of private homes. For the past two years, the Institute for Policy Studies, through its Campaign for Migrant Domestic Worker Rights, has been heading a coalition of organizations in the Washington, D.C. area to end such abuses by diplomats and employees of international agencies.

The Campaign grew out of a May 1995 cover story in the Washington City Paper by Foreign Policy In Focus co-director Martha Honey. The investigative piece documented the existence of domestic "slavery" by some of Washington's most privileged international civil servants and described a "modern-day Underground Railroad"--a loose network of churches, social service groups, lawyers and individuals--quietly helping scores of domestics escape exploitative and often abusive situations, get legal help, and find other employment. The Campaign, launched in September 1997 by the women at IPS, has now grown into a broad and vocal coalition of lawyers, social service providers, unions, human rights groups, ethnically-based centers, activist organizations, and religious groups working to set up a system to monitor and provide protections for this vulnerable migrant domestic labor force, provide them information about their legal rights, and hold the employers and institutions involved accountable for abuse. Most of these domestic workers are poor women from developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America who come to the U.S. (mainly Washington and New York) on special A-3 and G-5 visas, to work in the homes of diplomats and officials of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, and other international organizations. These special visa categories--A-3s for household employees of diplomats and G-5s for employees of international agency officials--include cooks, drivers, nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, and other personal servants who prop up and provide the underpinning to support their life styles. In 1998, 3,762 A-3 and G-5 visas were issued, with the largest numbers coming from the Philippines (22.3%), Indonesia (8.1%), Peru (5.6%) and India (4.8%).

The Campaign has found that there is a pattern to the abuse of G-5 and A-3 workers that usually begins at the point of arrival in the United States. The employer frequently demands that the worker hand over her passport, the contract (if there is one), and other legal papers "for safe keeping." In practice, an employer uses the possession of these documents to maintain control and sometimes forces the worker to sign a new contract, stipulating longer hours and less pay. Exploitative employers also typically tell the worker that she may not use the telephone, make contact with her "compatriots" in the area, or leave the house alone. Without documents, local contacts, or knowledge of her legal rights under U.S. law, domestics--who frequently do not speak English and may be illiterate--simply put up with a bad situation. If allowed out at all, it is usually to attend church, and for this reason churches in the Washington area have often been the first place where abused domestics have sought help. One Catholic sister has files of several hundred G-5 and A-3 workers she has assisted, dating back to the mid-1970s.

Cases of exploitation have involved domestic workers forced to work six or seven days a week, often from sun-up to late at night, for $300 or less per month. This is a far cry from the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, to which domestics are entitled. In several instances, workers have been forced to work for years with no pay at all. Violations may extend to far more horrific physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, including the case of a Filipina woman whose employer forced her to wear a dog collar and sleep outside with the family's dogs. A worker from Malawi was forced to sleep on a piece of cardboard in the basement and bathe outside using a bucket of cold water. In several cases, domestic workers were also forced to run illegal daycare centers in their employers' homes.

Live-in domestic workers inherently occupy a gray space in terms of labor rights. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the great arbiter of all things labor-related, only exacerbates this middle-ground phenomenon. For instance, while the FLSA requires that domestic workers be paid at least the minimum wage, domestic workers who live with their employers, unlike other workers, are not entitled to overtime pay. The FLSA also states that "[i]n meeting the wage responsibilities imposed by the Act, employers may take appropriate credit for the reasonable cost or fair value?of food, lodging and other facilities customarily furnished to the employee by the employer," yet nobody monitors how much the employer deducts from the worker's wages in the name of food and lodging. The Campaign seeks to ensure that U.S. labor laws and other legal guarantees are enforced and strengthened; it does not want the A-3 and G-5 visa categories cancelled because these programs are among the few ways that poor workers from developing countries can legally enter and work in the United States.

The Campaign is working on a two-pronged effort to expose, challenge, and try to end this form of domestic slavery. On the one hand, it is involved in negotiations with the World Bank and IMF (which together currently have about one thousand G-5's employed by their staffs) to get these institutions to tighten up their monitoring of the program and take action against abusers. In addition, the Campaign is embarking on a grass-roots organizing effort to inform and empower A-3 and G-5 domestics and set up a more organized network to provide social services and legal help to abused G-5 and A-3 workers. This includes the publication of a booklet, The Legal Rights and Resources Available to G-5 and A-3 Domestic Workers, to be distributed in several languages throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. Only through this dual effort, combining pressure to the top with empowerment at the bottom, can we hope to stop the abuse and exploitation of this hidden community.

Stephen Fried is working this summer on the Campaign for Migrant Domestic Workers Rights at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is entering his sophomore year at Stanford University.

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