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Equal protection

Originally published May 31, 2005
CONGRESS IS wisely moving to rein in unscrupulous employers who exploit foreign guest workers, a longstanding problem that undermines labor standards in American workplaces.

Lawmakers recently proposed strengthening regulations governing guest worker programs and levying stiff fines for employers who violate the rules. Considering the widespread abuse in industries that hire these workers, the measures deserve strong support. Lawmakers should also extend protections to undocumented immigrants, who are a much more sizable portion of this country's work force.

Those who argue against giving undocumented immigrants workplace protections would be more persuasive if the Bush administration were seriously going after the employers who illegally hire them. Instead, the administration has largely tolerated this practice as a necessary component of labor market forces. As such, these workers deserve to be protected too, if not for ethical reasons then for the country's self-interest. Improved labor standards and safer working conditions benefit all workers - American and foreign.

Employers who overwork and underpay undocumented workers, expose them to dangerous job conditions yet refuse to pay medical expenses for injuries and threaten to have them deported if they complain lower the standards for everyone.

This month, Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat, introduced legislation that would hold employers and foreign labor contractors jointly responsible for mistreatment of guest workers, and heavily fine violators.

Mr. Miller has pressed for this measure before to end widely documented abuses, including indentured servitude, of tens of thousands of mostly poor Asian women in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. One needn't look far to find similar examples stateside, in the agricultural, construction, landscape and meatpacking industries, among many others, where the victims are from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

"This type of abuse is happening all over our nation," Mr. Miller said in a written statement. "It is a violation of our most basic shared humanity, and it must be stopped." We agree wholeheartedly.

Another worthy and comprehensive measure, introduced by Sens. John McCain and Edward M. Kennedy, would let guest workers seek legal remedies for violations of their rights - a protection that is not afforded undocumented workers, but should be.

Affected workers are increasingly speaking out. Last month, 16 temporary workers from Mexico, Guatemala and Panama filed a complaint under the North American Free Trade agreement, alleging physical injury, stolen wages, unsafe housing and dangerous work conditions.

Congress should not be prompted by lawsuits to do what's right; it needs only to act on the American principle of fairness and justice for all.