The People Shout No

N o! That’s what hundreds of thousands of people were saying as they came out of their homes into the streets all over the country—a million in Los Angeles, half a million in Chicago, tens of thousands in New York crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, hunger strikers in San Francisco, demonstrations in states where the immigrant community has been virtually invisible until now, such as North Carolina and Tennessee, and in towns like Tucson, Santa Rosa, and Omaha. 

Everywhere, immigrants and their supporters are condemning the measures passed by the House of Representatives in December, especially the provision that would make undocumented people federal felons. But the demonstrations have a positive demand as well, one that condemns the slight-of-hand being practiced in the Senate where second-class guest worker programs are being called a “path to legalization.” Those myriad marchers reject the idea that the only way to gain legal status for their undocumented members is to spend a decade working as braceros. They propose an alternative: equality. 

Many unions support them. Among the most outspoken are the Teamsters in Orange County, heart of the anti-immigrant offensive where the mayor of Costa Mesa told his police department to begin picking up immigrants who lack visas. Teamsters Local 952 says people need real legal status, not a guest-worker program. The union “opposes any form of employer sanctions because they have historically resulted in ‘employee sanctions’ in the form of firings of workers for union organizing and discrimination practices on the job,” and “opposes guest worker legislative proposals because such modern day ‘bracero programs,’ create an indentured servitude status for workers.” 

The AFL-CIO says the same, pointing out that if there are jobs for 400,000 braceros a year (the goal of the Senate reform bill), those immigrants should be given 400,000 green cards or residence visas instead, which would guarantee them equal status in the workplace and communities. 

When Senator John McCain, co-sponsor of the Senate’s main guest worker plan, tried to defend it to a building trades union audience in his home state in April, he was booed. 

Despite a concerted effort in Washington by some lobbyists to convince legislators that guestworker status, while unpleasant, is something immigrants themselves would be prepared to accept, outside the beltway their proposal has met a rising tide of rejection. In New York City, Desis Rising Up & Moving and 20 other groups formed Immigrant Communities In Action and condemned both House and Senate bills for not halting the wave of detentions and deportations visited on Muslim communities since 9/11. 

Another coalition, which includes the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said, like the Teamsters, that instead of setting up guest-worker programs, Congress should abolish employer sanctions since they’re used to retaliate against undocumented workers who demand their labor rights. 

The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights criticized the Senate bill, saying it held “no promise of fairness in immigration policy and would undermine the rights, economic health, and safety of all immigrants and their children. Congress needs to go back to the drawing board to come up with genuine, positive and fair proposals.” 

Over 170 million people now live outside of the countries in which they were born. The work of migrants is indispensable to many industries, from agriculture to construction. So is the work of people born here. Everyone needs a job. 

Deporting or denying work to migrants does not create a single job for anyone else. In 1986 the AFL-CIO supported passage of employer sanctions, arguing that if workers without papers were expelled from their jobs, they would leave the country and other workers would fill their places. The results were disastrous. No jobs were created for anyone and when the prohibition was heavily enforced, union organizing was undermined. Employers used the law to push income down and threaten those who demanded workplace rights. In 1998 the AFL-CIO finally called for repeal of employer sanctions. 

While some argue that labor protections can be added to bracero programs, bitter experience with NAFTA’s labor side agreement shows that this approach just produces a paper process. Without a government committed to equality and the enforcement of labor rights for everyone, workers on temporary visas will be more vulnerable than even the undocumented.