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    working4change
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    Obama to meet with business leaders, unions amid negotiations over guest worker progr

    Obama to meet with business leaders, unions amid negotiations over guest worker program

    Published February 05, 2013

    FoxNews.com

    WASHINGTON – Business leaders and labor union officials will participate Tuesday in high-stakes negotiations over the possibility of a guest worker program to ensure future immigrants come here legally.

    The Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO have been tasked by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York with reaching a deal, within weeks, that Schumer and a bipartisan Senate group on immigration could incorporate into immigration new legislation being put together by the group.

    The possibility of a guest worker program has traditionally divided labor and business. Labor groups have looked askance on bringing in numerous low-wage workers, while that's an outcome businesses have favored.


    Labor and business leaders also will meet with Obama at the White House on Tuesday in separate sessions to discuss a wide range of issues, including immigration reform and how it fits into the broader economic picture.

    Both sides appear hopeful, although Schumer and others say the issue scuttled the last attempt at a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law in 2007.

    This time around, officials involved hope for a better result, in part because all involved see the clear necessity of addressing what's called "future flow" -- the influx of migrants to the U.S. that's sure to come whether or not Congress passes an immigration bill.

    If Congress does act to provide a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country, it's just as important to deal with future immigration, advocates say. Otherwise, some time from now the country will once again find itself home to many more illegal immigrants.

    "We're at a point where we have to take that issue really seriously and think about what kind of a system do we want to have in place so that 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we're not in the same situation," said Ana Avendano, assistant to the AFL-CIO president for immigration and community action.

    The Chamber of Commerce "views the existence of a temporary worker program as vital to a comprehensive immigration bill," spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes said in a statement.

    The U.S. does have several temporary worker programs already, but they're viewed as cumbersome and outdated, and experts say the majority of migrant workers in agricultural and other low-skill fields like landscaping or housekeeping are illegal.

    For business and labor, the question is how to come to an agreement on how many workers to let in and under what circumstances, how much they would be paid, and whether and how they would be able to attain eventual permanent residency, the critical step toward citizenship.

    "Few aspects of immigration law are so divisive in terms of where the two sides stand," said Demetrios Papademetriou, head of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

    That institute and others have proposed creation of a permanent commission that would make recommendations about where and when workers are needed, an idea said to be under consideration as the business and labor groups negotiate.

    The bipartisan Senate group has outlined parameters that would allow employers to hire immigrants if they could show they couldn't find an American for the job, and would respond to economic conditions by allowing more immigrants into the country at times of low unemployment, and fewer when unemployment is high.

    The guest worker issue has emerged as a split between the Senate negotiating group and President Barack Obama, who omitted any such program from his immigration proposals, drawing criticism from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a key negotiator on the Republican side.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Read more: Obama to meet with business leaders, unions amid negotiations over guest worker program | Fox News

  2. #2
    Senior Member posylady's Avatar
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    "We're at a point where we have to take that issue really seriously and think about what kind of a system do we want to have in place so that 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we're not in the same situation," said Ana Avendano, assistant to the AFL-CIO president for immigration and community action.

    I heard this same this speach with Reagan anyone remember? Look what good it did then.

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