Thread: Democrats' ties to labor could complicate immigration reform

http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdee ... 405777.htm
Posted on Sun, Jan. 07, 2007
Democrats' ties to labor could complicate immigration reform

WASHINGTON - President Bush's hopes of securing a comprehensive immigration overhaul have brightened considerably in the new Democratic-controlled Congress, but resistance from organized labor - one of the Democratic Party's most loyal constituencies - could complicate those efforts.

The AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions with more than 9 million members, is ratcheting up opposition to a temporary guest worker program, a key element of Bush's immigration plan. At the same time, two powerful unions in a breakaway labor coalition, Change to Win, have tended to support the provision.

The divisions within labor were evident during the contentious debate over immigration in the previous Republican-controlled Congress. But they take on heightened significance as Democrats assume control of the 110th Congress and begin shaping the legislative agenda.

Organized labor is a bedrock of the Democratic coalition and helped drive Democrats' takeover of Congress in November's elections.

Labor political action committees contributed 86 percent of their donations to Democratic candidates, a total of $42 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Labor also aggressively waged get-out-the-vote efforts and other activities to help end 12 years of Republican control of Congress.

With its bolstered political clout, the AFL-CIO is better positioned to confront a powerful coalition of business groups that is pressing for a temporary worker program to bring in thousands of foreign workers each year.

"The industry will oppose a bill that doesn't have a good temporary worker program in it," said Randel Johnson, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But Johnson acknowledged that the AFL-CIO's heightened political stature in the aftermath of the elections raises the challenge for his side.

"In view of the election, it's very significant," he said. "Certainly, the AFL-CIO has a bigger seat at the table than they did before."

Business leaders say the guest worker program is needed to bring in foreign workers to fill unskilled and low-skilled jobs that Americans don't want. But AFL-CIO officials say the program is designed to give business a steady source of cheap labor and would take jobs from U.S. citizens.

"We don't believe our elected representatives are ready to adopt legislation that creates paths for corporations to import workers (and) reduce working standards in the United States," said Ana Avendando, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO. "That's exactly what guest worker programs are."

Bush has made immigration one of his top domestic priorities since the outset of his presidency. But he was rebuffed by members of his own party when conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives effectively bottled up a Senate-passed bill. The legislation, which had bipartisan support, included a guest worker program and a legalization plan to put millions of undocumented workers on a path to U.S. citizenship.

At least 12 million illegal immigrants, predominately from Mexico and other Latin American countries, have entered the United States over the last two decades in search of higher paying jobs and better living conditions. How to deal with the growing undocumented population remains one of the most troublesome elements in the immigration debate as Congress prepares to take up the issue again.

Ironically, Bush appears likely to fare better with Democrats than he did with his own party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., support a comprehensive solution that appears to embrace the general thrust of last year's Senate bill.

In the previous session, House Republicans insisted on an enforcement-only approach that resulted in the passage of a largely unfunded bill creating a 700-mile fence along the Southwest border, the only major immigration initiative to emerge from the GOP-controlled 109th Congress.

The Senate leadership already has designated a comprehensive immigration bill as one of its top 10 legislative initiatives, dubbing it Senate Bill 9, although the components will come later.

"We're going to get it passed," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who replaces Texas Republican John Cornyn as chairman of the Senate's key immigration subcommittee.

With Democrats in control, the next version of a Senate bill could largely resemble bipartisan legislation that Kennedy co-sponsored with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., offering eventual citizenship to undocumented immigrants after they pay fines, pass background checks and meet other conditions. A guest worker program in the McCain-Kennedy bill sought to bring in up to 400,000 foreign workers a year and offered future U.S. citizenship to qualifying participants.

The Kennedy-McCain bill served as the framework for the legislation that eventually passed the Senate, but its guest worker program was scaled back. The legalization feature was also redrawn to create three categories that determine eligibility based on the length of an illegal immigrant's stay in the country. That hard-to-administer feature, which aimed at attracting support from wavering Republics, will likely be jettisoned.

The outlook is a bit more fluid in the House, which under Republican control never seriously debated a comprehensive measure. But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the incoming chairwoman of the House immigration subcommittee, said she is optimistic that House members eventually can find accord on legalization, guest workers, and other contentious provisions.

"We're at the beginning here," she said. "I believe that if we stop yelling at each other and just methodically work our way through the outstanding questions, that we can come up with a practical solution."

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Business leaders say the guest worker program is needed to bring in foreign workers to fill unskilled and low-skilled jobs that Americans don't want.

Why do they keep saying we need a "guest worker" program? We already have guest worker plans in place, but greedy corps do not want to play by the rules because then their labor wouldn't be cheap. Legislation should be passed to make the greedy employers who want cheap labor to pay for their housing and their healthcare and not dump it to the taxpayers.

This very important bit of news has been added to the homepage

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... e&sid=1823

This rift with the AFL CIO is very important to our efforts to block amnesty.

W

Maybe I am behind the curve on this one, but maybe it is time to send mass emails, faxes, phone calls to Pelosi and Reid since we don't seem to be getting anywhere with the Republicans.