By TYLER MORA. Originally posted at Immigration Impact.
While most employers are law-abiding, some unscrupulous employers have a secret weapon for keeping down wages and working conditions—our broken immigration system. Bad apple employers hire undocumented immigrants, subject them to unsafe working conditions, pay them less than the market wage, or don’t pay them at all. If undocumented workers file a labor complaint or try to form a union, the employer will threaten them with deportation or even call DHS to have the workers deported. Then the workers are whisked into detention or out of the country before they can seek remedies for the labor violations. Most employers don’t get punished for their misconduct, which puts unscrupulous employers at a competitive advantage over law-abiding employers.
Why is this bad for all workers, including U.S. citizens? Easy-to-exploit undocumented immigrants under the constant threat of deportation are forced to accept sub-standard working conditions. This spills over to authorized workers who must also accept these conditions or risk losing their jobs. This also undercuts union organizing. Undocumented coworkers have fewer legal avenues for redress of labor violations and far less incentive to participate in collective efforts to improve conditions at the workplace.
A recent report by the National Employment Law Project found a slew of labor and employment law violations in low-wage industries in three of the nation’s largest cities:
- At least 26% of workers surveyed were paid less than the legally required minimum wage the previous week, 60% of whom were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.
- More than a quarter of workers surveyed worked more than 40 hours the previous week and 76% of whom were not paid the required overtime rate.
- 41% of workers surveyed had illegal deductions taken out of their paychecks for reasons such as damage, loss, work-related tools or materials.
- 43% of workers who filed a complaint to their employers or attempted to form a union suffered illegal retaliation from their employers—such as being fired or suspended, cut wages and hours and threats of deportation.
- Of the 8% of workers surveyed who filed a serious injury claim, 50% experienced illegal employer reactions.
The Drum Major Institute argues that all workers benefit from a strengthening of workplace rights for immigrants. In fact, they find that undocumented workers’ ability to improve their own working conditions would benefit all workers by making jobs more desirable, which translates into more jobs that can support a middle-class standard of living. The Immigration Policy Center also reports that lack of legal status makes unauthorized workers extremely vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous employers, and at the same time jeopardizes the competitiveness of those employers who try to follow the law.
As immigration reform hovers on the horizon, we should learn a lesson from the failure of our current broken immigration system and ineffective worksite enforcement policy. Not only does current policy fail to address the economic incentive that employers have to hire undocumented workers, but it has allowed unscrupulous employers to gain an unfair advantage and use immigration law to drive down the wages and working conditions of all workers.
Worksite enforcement must be part of comprehensive immigration reform. However, the real answer to “enforcement” at the worksite is making sure all workers can exercise their labor rights, increasing enforcement of labor and employment laws, and closing the gaping loophole that allows immigration enforcement to trump labor law enforcement. Policymakers need to take on this critical issue. Otherwise, the employment rights of all of us are at risk.
*Tyler Moran is Policy Director at the National Immigration Law Center.
Photo by victoriapeckham
Categories: labor
The 1986 Simpson/ Mazzoli bill for BLANKET AMNESTY was never broken. It was just stripped of its enforcement powers. It was corrupted by politicians for their business consortium friends, who expected no prohibition on the free flow of millions of impoverished, illiterate workers they could use as slave labor. The 1986 immigration control and reform act translated into travesty of immigration laws. Use amendments to the bill, instead of producing a brand new law in catering to the wide open border conspirators.
Sen. Durbin D-IL has reined supreme in oratory guile that has a strong foundations in Congress. Dick Durbin’s speeches supposedly a defender of unemployed Americans, while behind the lines he makes Americans jobless. As with Sen.Harry Reid D-NV, Assistant majority leader Durbin, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has given there assurance to promote E-Verify, but also heavily approved a need for a path to citizenship or AMNESTY for the 20 to 30 million already squatting here. Although he commiserates the 125,000 who have recently lost their unemployment benefits, he disregards the fact that his immigration policies now in place has awarded 125,000 brand new work permits to foreign nationals this last month. Such is the capability for self-deception in Congress that I wonder if Sen. Durbin and his foreign-labor-in-shoring conspirators have any inkling of awareness in counter-production. Sen. Durbin, Sen. Harry Reid is just one of the dozen Members of Congress utterly accountable for seeing to it that ANOTHER 125,000 Americans each month are kept out of a work. Its this politicians uncouth insistence on providing cheap labor to pariah employers, that draws millions–no matter the danger–into America. Call your own Senators or Congressman 202-224-3121 and demand they make sure that the unemployment benefit extension keeps money out of the hands of illegal aliens. Sen. Sessions amendment uses E-Verify to authenticate a US workers right to 14 more weeks of these benefits.
Then although California is a sanctuary state, not all cities believe in these refuge policies, such as San Diego. It seems that the federal contractors in Southernmost California city appreciate the new E-Verify ruling. The federal mandate requires all businesses with federal contracts of at least $100,000 and lasting longer than 120 days to use E-Verify and that all new hires must go through a verification procedure. San Diego industries receive a large portion of contracts, and it’s proximity to the Mexican border makes it vulnerable to volumes of illegal workers. Currently more than 160,000 businesses are operating E-Verify with close to 13,000 of them in the State of California. In the recently passed Homeland Security spending bill, Congress re-authorized E-Verify for three more years. Now E-Verify has shown a powerful ally in removing foreign nationals in working establishments nationwide. It’s success and easy access by employers has shown its immigration enforcement ability.
NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE E-VERIFY PERMANENT , BEFORE CORRUPT LAWMAKERS SOMEHOW WEAKEN IT? ITS VERY LIKELY A NEW IMMIGRATION BILL WILL BE IN THE HANDS OF OUR POLITICIANS EARLY NEXT YEAR. WE ALREADY HAVE THE 1986 IMMIGRATION BILL, WHICH HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY ENGINEERED FOR BUSINESSES & OPEN BORDER ZEALOTS. IF IT PASSES A THIRD OF THE INDIGENT WORLD, WILL SWARM OUR UNDERMANNED BORDERS. E-VERIFY WORKS! BY ATTRITION OR SELF-DEPORTATION ILLEGAL WORKERS AND FAMILIES WILL LEAVE IF NO JOBS ARE AVAILABLE. VIOLATIONS OF IMMIGRATION LAWS MUST CARRY STRICT PENALTIES, INCLUDING PRISON TERMS & HEAVY FINES.
In regards 2010 census in 6 months? Those who entered without–THE PEOPLE’S–permission, have violated our laws, and should not, must not be allowed to be enumerated in the decennial census? Is Washington so sure that they will pass this 2nd Amnesty, when Ted Kennedy previous comprehensive immigration reform turned into fraudulent travesty? As I see it nobody by their skin color, religion or if they are homosexual who are legally in this nation, who have been inspected and entered with work visas should be welcomed. They as other honest new arrivals did not cheat our immigration system, but perhaps waited for years to be recognized as a permanent resident?
Read more information about the ugly consequences of illegal immigration, its costs to taxpayer, the danger to our national language and our culture at NUMBERSUSA. Find undisclosed details of corruption within our government and rampant dishonesty in ACORN at JUDICIAL WATCH. Learn about irreversible OVERPOPULATION and the complete indifference to our failing infrastructure at CAPSWEB. This week the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland needed repair when rusted cables ripped apart. The Bay Bridge was originally constructed in 1936 and carries 270.000 vehicles a day,
Law abiding employers don’t hire ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Those that do should be heavily fined. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS who sneak across the border to work deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, as they are being sent home and told to follow the rules that currently exist for LEGAL IMMIGRATION!
Both parties are to blame for what you’ve described in the article above.
Your solution seems to be simply to punish the bad employers, and give amnesty to the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
How self serving can you be?