http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... M8RK62.DTL

Labor's lukewarm welcome
Unions divided over guest worker programs
- George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 10, 2006



The labor movement, founded on the principle of worker solidarity, is seriously divided over the "guest worker" program proposed as part of immigration reform legislation.

Guest worker programs allow foreigners to enter the United States temporarily to take select jobs.

The idea is favored by the Service Employees International Union and other unions whose ranks include lots of immigrants. Support for the idea has become part of the drive to make the union movement relevant to new groups of workers.

"I think it is another example of old versus new, status quo versus progress and change,'' said Sal Rosselli, the president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West. About 40 percent of the members of his union are immigrants.

But the idea is opposed by the AFL-CIO, labor's largest confederation, and other unions that say such programs cast workers into second-class status and depress wages.

"Guest worker program are a bad idea and harm all workers,'' AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. "Guest worker programs encourage employers to turn good jobs into temporary jobs at reduced wages and diminished working conditions, and contribute to the growing class of workers laboring in poverty.''

While the two factions disagree on the guest worker plan, both say they support immigrant rights. The AFL-CIO, for example, favors reforms that would allow undocumented immigrants to legalize their status in some circumstances.

The guest worker proposals now being considered would give foreigners visas allowing them to work temporarily, with arrangements made by labor contractors. The workers would have to remain employed while in the country or face deportation.

No legalization

President Bush proposes a program that would annually grant 300,000 workers temporary visas for three years, renewable for another three years. His plan does not include legalization of undocumented workers.

The key Senate immigration reform bill, sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., would authorize a larger guest worker program, with 400,000 people entering annually. It offers the undocumented a path to citizenship.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, approved the Border Security, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., which makes no provisions for guest workers. It would make illegal immigration a felony and erect a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. The legislation would have to be reconciled with whatever bill comes out of the Senate.

Under terms of the Kennedy-McCain legislation, illegal immigrants would be able to apply for temporary visas valid for three years and possibly renewed for another three.

Before they could apply for a green card granting them residency, they would have to pay a $2,000 fee, learn English, study American civics, pay any delinquent taxes, and be subject to criminal and national security background checks. They would be considered for citizenship behind the 3.3 million people now ahead of them -- at least an 11-year wait.

That's amnesty to some -- a concept many people fiercely oppose.

Guest worker programs, however, get support from powerful business interests, especially in sectors such as agriculture that depend on immigrant labor. They say it's necessary because there simply are not enough Americans willing to do hard work in the fields.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., this year introduced a bill that would allow foreign workers to take agriculture jobs. The measure is supported by strange bedfellows that include growers, the United Farm Workers, the Republican caucus, and assorted liberal and conservative advocacy groups.

The Feinstein proposal establishes a "blue card'' program that, over five years, would enable 1.5 million farmworkers to gain legal status.

Shades of Bracero program

Some critics say guest worker proposals remind them of the Bracero program that permitted 4.5 million Mexican farmworkers to cross the border from 1942 to 1964. Many of those workers were misused by employers and faced deportation for raising questions about their treatment.

Their plight inspired Woody Guthrie's 1948 song "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,'' which told of the crash of a plane carrying 28 deported farmworkers back to Mexico.

In the late 1950s, Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of SEIU, was a 10-year-old boy from Zacatecas, in the Mexican central highlands, when he and his mother joined his father harvesting crops in the Bracero program.

"It was a failure, absolutely the worst thing that could have been done to workers,'' Medina said.

He supports the proposed guest worker program, however, arguing that it could be far different from the Bracero arrangement. In order to protect workers from exploitation and intimidation, SEIU wants a program that includes the right to union organization and the ability to change jobs so that workers are not tied to employers.

"We would break the mold,'' Medina said.

The AFL-CIO supports a path to permanent residency for those immigrant workers already here, spokeswoman Esmeralda Aguilar said. "We also support full rights for the future immigrant workforce,'' she said. "We propose that if employers can demonstrate a real need for outside labor, we should embrace these workers not as second-class guests but as full members of society, as permanent residents with full rights and full mobility that employers may not exploit.''

Pro-guest worker unions argue that a legal program will make it easier to protect workers.

"With a path to citizenship, there will be fewer folks who have to work under the table," SEIU's Rosselli said. "That is where workers are abused, because they are threatened that they will be deported.''

Some advocates for immigrants don't like guest worker proposals because of sanctions they consider heavy handed. The Senate bill has an enforcement provision that makes documentation fraud a deportable offense, said Evelyn Sanchez of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Overall, she said, the guest worker proposals have "weak labor protections.''

Disagreements over guest workers are far from poisonous for the labor movement, said Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist and chair of the Center for Latin America Studies at UC Berkeley.

"There are a lot of differences, but for whatever reason I don't think that is going to hurt," Shaiken said. "This is not the issue that splits the labor movement. Not yet. There are differences that are very real, and they are personal differences that existed before and are more exacerbated now, but I think what is most important is there is a commonality of values, versus saying immigrants are the enemy.''

Business is linchpin

Labor, however, is not the most powerful voice in the debate.

"The only reason and chance for reform is that business wants something to happen,'' said Ruth Milkman, director of the UC Institute for Labor and Employment at UCLA. "Bush is an advocate. The unions are pretty marginal.''

Despite different views, people in and close to the labor movement say they have been stirred by the huge crowds marching through the streets of the nation's cities recently in support of immigrants.

"Whatever one's perspective on immigration, I thought there was something very moving about seeing tens of thousands of people, who have spent critical years working hard and living in fear, enjoying a moment of sunshine," Shaiken said. "That moment of sunshine may not last very long, but that doesn't mean that people are prepared to go into the shadows again.''



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A split verdict
The union movement is divided on a guest worker program that would allow foreigners to enter the United States on temporary work visas.

ARGUMENT FOR: The Service Employees International Union and other labor groups with a large proportion of immigrant members say a guest worker program would provide protections and legal status for foreigners who work in the United States.

ARGUMENT AGAINST: The AFL-CIO and some other unions say guest workers would be a second-class group of workers and would depress wages for others.

WHERE THEY AGREE: Pro- and anti-guest worker unions both favor reforms that would grant legal status to some undocumented workers already in the United States.

Source: Chronicle research

E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.