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migrant workers
Labor, Rights Groups Praise Biden Policy Boosting Migrant Worker Protections
"This is a huge victory for undocumented workers and the labor movement," said one organizer.
Jan 13, 2023
Migrant workers and advocates on Friday applauded a Biden administration policy to help protect noncitizen employees who are victims or witnesses of labor rights violations "from threats of immigration-related retaliation from the exploitive employers."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that noncitizens will be able to submit requests for temporary relief from deportation or other immigration actions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) "through a central intake point established specifically to support labor agency investigative and enforcement efforts."
"This policy will change lives, but only if our local and national leaders stand with workers loud and clear, to make this policy a reality."
DHS said that "for deferred action requests from noncitizens who are in removal proceedings or have a final order of removal, upon reviewing the submission for completeness, USCIS will forward such requests to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make a final determination on a case-by-case basis."
As Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, explained Friday in a blog post welcoming the announcement:
Given the current budget constraints of federal labor standards enforcement agencies—which are funded at just one-twelfth the rate of immigration enforcement agencies—the use of deferred action in this manner will encourage workers and whistleblowers to speak out without fear and will act as a force multiplier for underfunded and understaffed labor enforcement agencies, thereby assisting them in their mission to protect worker rights and hold lawbreaking employers accountable. This will make workplaces safer for all workers.
Organizations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Immigrant Work praised the policy, with Haydi Torres, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Acción NJ, declaring that "this is a huge victory for undocumented workers and the labor movement."
"Our fight goes beyond our immigration status, it is a fight for all the workers who sustain the economy of this country," Torres said. "Without our hands there is no work."
Yale Law School professor James Bhandary-Alexander, an attorney with Unidad Latina en Acción CT, said that "the threat of deportation is like a gun in the boss's hand, pointed at workers and their rights."
Workers' rights leaders such as Victor Agreda agreed, saying that "the bosses always act like they have more power than the workers."
While "my co-workers and I overcame our fear to denounce labor abuses," Agreda said, "deferred action is labor justice for all workers who remain silent in the face of abuse."
\u201cHUGE win for immigrant workers! This is a historic step for victims of workplace mistreatment and wage theft. This is only the start - we won\u2019t stop until there\u2019s #citizenshipforall! \u270a\ud83c\udffd\n\nMigrant workers can now be protected from deportation while disputing workplace abuse.\u201d— NICE: New Immigrant Community Empowerment (@NICE: New Immigrant Community Empowerment) 1673630263
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asserted Friday that "unscrupulous employers who prey on the vulnerability of noncitizen workers harm all workers and disadvantage businesses who play by the rules."
"We will hold these predatory actors accountable by encouraging all workers to assert their rights, report violations they have suffered or observed, and cooperate in labor standards investigations," he pledged. "Through these efforts, and with our labor agency partners, we will effectively protect the American labor market, the conditions of the American worksite, and the dignity of the workers who power our economy."
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU), said that "today's announcement by Secretary Mayorkas is welcome news. Immigrant workers are critical to the success of our economy, yet they are among those who suffer the most exploitation and abuse at work, and then suffer further from intimidation and retaliation when they stand up for their rights."
\u201cFor far too long, immigrant workers have had no one in their corner as they faced employers who threatened them with deportation and unlivable wages. This new guidance will help create fairer and safer working conditions for #OurComunidad and all workers.\u201d— Hispanic Federation (@Hispanic Federation) 1673647227
Since then-President-elect Joe Biden announced Marty Walsh as his nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Labor in October 2021, migrant worker advocates have pressured the administration to ensure that its immigration and labor policies are aligned and to protect whistleblowers by removing the threat of deportation.
"From Las Vegas to Washington D.C., to Mississippi to New York, we have fought tirelessly to reach this moment," Rosario Ortiz of the Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center noted Friday. "My coworkers and I have been fighting our case for more than three years, facing threats and intimidation on top of wage theft and health and safety risks as workers of Unforgettable Coatings Inc."
"We've met personally with Secretary Walsh and Secretary Maryokas to call for these protections," Ortiz said. "Today I am proud of my coworkers and our brothers and sisters across the country who have helped open a pathway for others in our circumstances to seek the protections that we have won."
\u201c#BREAKING: #DHS announces new migrant workers whistleblower policy! It\u2019s a recognition of the many workers who launched the #DALE campaign demanding Biden protect rights of migrant workers confronting abuse + unsafe work - with work permits - not try to deport them!\u201d— Justice Action Center (JAC) (@Justice Action Center (JAC)) 1673638469
While celebrating the administration's move, Unidad Latina en Acción CT director John Jairo Lugo stressed that "words without actions are not enough. This policy will change lives, but only if our local and national leaders stand with workers loud and clear, to make this policy a reality."
National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) co-executive director Nadia Marin-Molina vowed that "we are going to fight like hell in the days and weeks ahead to ensure that every single worker who qualifies can get the benefit of this new policy."
"We are going to fight like hell in the days and weeks ahead to ensure that every single worker who qualifies can get the benefit of this new policy."
Farmworker Justice, which also applauded the announcement, pointed out that the policy "will have a particularly powerful impact among farmworkers, more than half of whom are either undocumented or on precarious H-2A work visas, and their families."
"Farmworker Justice has supported advocate demands for these protections for many years, and we look forward to continued engagement with DHS as well as labor enforcement agencies to educate farmworkers and their advocates about the new guidance," the group said. "We will also continue to advocate for comprehensive solutions that improve the lives of farmworkers and their families, including legislation that provides immigrant workers with a path to citizenship, protections against workplace hazards like extreme heat and pesticides, and the elimination of unjust farmworker exclusions from federal labor protections."
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Why I'm In: Pushing for Lexit Won't Help Migrants or the Working Class
Jun 22, 2016
Brexit or 'taking back our country' from European elites will only hand it over to domestic ones and turbo-charge their bonfire of union rights. Our labour will become more 'flexible' and we will be more fucked over.
There are 3 million EU migrant workers in the UK, many of them working in manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and hospitality. Hospitality is the fourth biggest employer in the UK, with a workforce of 4.4millon - 70% of whom are migrant workers. It is also the most precarious and un-unionised with just 3.6% belonging to a union. Hotel housekeeping departments are mainly staffed by Eastern European women workers (pdf). Boris Johnson cannot wipe his butt in the morning without the help of a migrant woman worker.
So why should we care what happens to 'them'? Because what happens to them, in terms of access to employment rights and agency to challenge exploitation, will happen to us.
Anti-immigrant fervor paved the way for the introduction of NHS fees for migrants through the Immigration Act 2014. Under tabloid-stoked banners of ending 'health tourism', the NHS now has a legal and administrative framework for a charging health care system. You don't need to be a genius to work out who else this will be rolled out to - everyone.
Could we see a work permit or insurance system (migrant tax) introduced as a means of disincentivizing people from coming to work here? Or even a Danish-style 'workfare for refugees' model where refugees are paid less than Danish citizens, on Apprentice rates, with corporations paid to take them on and keep them on for two years. In some cases accommodation is tied to employment (this is reminiscent of pre-EU accession conditions for exploited Eastern European migrant workers but can be prevalent for any worker with no legal status to work and who is dependent on Gangmasters). Whilst named an 'integration' measure, the Danish initiative is also exploitative and could act as a deterrent to migration.
Those pushing hardest for Lexit will not be hardest hit by it. When migrant workers are the pawns in this game of EU and domestic class control, voting for a move that will exclude them and normalize restrictions on their rights will not encourage their participation in a political process - a left-wing alternative - that needs to include them as a part of the whole UK working class. Lexit only resonates with certain parts of that class - those with employment, language and immigration status advantages.
Collective working class organisation and defence against exploitation has been aided by EU membership. There are 70 employment directives enforced in the UK through the European Court of Justice. Many benefit women - three-quarters of the UK part-time workforce. Equal paid holiday rights, unpaid leave to take care of children and, given the previous Coalition government wanted to cap compensation in sex and race discrimination claims but was prevented by the ECJ, the right to a workplace safer from sexism.
TUPE- Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations - isn't a catchy rallying cry but it has helped organise and protect the most precarious workers in the county. Subcontracting is extremely common with agencies and contract cleaning companies swapping in and out of hotels, public institutions and offices, with big business acting like a croupier on speed. With TUPE, workers need to be consulted and can elect reps and contest a change in their terms and conditions, even if there is no recognised union and don't forget, union density is only 14.2% on the private sector, where this is rife.
TUPE rights aid unionisation as they enable workers to collectivise and halt a pay cut, new intensification of work processes, or other losses like paid breaks or bonuses, which would leave them even poorer. Take TUPE away and there will be no deterrent or consequence for companies in accelerating the race to the bottom based on ever-cheapening labour costs, Ie exploitation of workers.
So when we 'take our country back' are we going to take our workplaces back? Control over our own labour back? No one is talking about that. Why would the Tories abandon their trajectory of slashing and burning union rights, passing 11 restrictive acts between 1980 and 1996 and continuing with the strike-banning Trade Union Act this year? The bonfire will continue.
When 450 million people are on the other side of a tariff barrier, when the EU only exports 10% of goods and services to us compared to us exporting 45% to the EU, where is UK trade leverage? Maybe it's going to be in having a workforce completely disciplined to the needs of capital, cheaper, un-unionised, fully flexible, and not subject to EU employment rights.
The interests and legislative capacity at a macro and domestic level will be there to enable an even 'lighter touch' labour regulation and low wage economy. We might be told that the pain, as with austerity, will be 'in the national interest', a teething symptom to put up with in order to really 'take our country back' - from union barons, migrants, EU nanny states, red tape - pick your foe.
Structural inequality and corporate 'rights' will harden at the expense of ours. There will be no departure from neo-liberalism. The capacity we need to 'take back control' is over our own labor, conditions, and economic organization. Under a Right-led Brexit, this capacity - and its connection to building for a genuine commons, for a European-wide Universal Basic Income, for resisting exploitation by capital, involving every part of the working class - will be weakened, structurally and politically.
A shorter version of this op-ed appeared on The Independent.
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Here Are All the Reasons Walmart's Business Is Not Sustainable
You probably paid a cheap price for those groceries at Walmart this week, but you almost certainly didn't pay a fair price.
Jun 06, 2015
You probably paid a cheap price for those groceries at Walmart this week, but you almost certainly didn't pay a fair price.
Walmart is a case study of how the "free market" can distort the value of a basic human need: Every price tag in Walmart's food inventory--which accounts for a quarter of the nation's grocery bill--is the product of agricultural subsidies, financialized commodities exchanges, and hyperinflated marketing. So to uncover the true cost of cheap groceries, the advocacy group Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) followed the supply chain and uncovered violations at every link in the retailer's "ethical sourcing" system.
Facing public pressure, Walmart has developed guidelines for ethical and sustainable sourcing, pledging that all outlets and suppliers "must fully comply with all applicable national and/or local laws and regulations...related to labor, immigration, health and safety, and the environment." Specifically, the company mandates that suppliers follow legal protections for "health and safety of workers" and implement "measures for reducing air and water pollutants, energy and water usage, and waste." The company recently launched a flashy "sustainability product expo" and rolled out new animal-welfare guidelines for livestock.
The human-welfare department appears to be lagging. While Walmart has come under fire for mistreating its store associates, the supply-chain workers are exploited in even more complex ways, with even less recourse against the company, as Walmart does not directly employ them.
The FCWA charges that Walmart is complicit in the systematic degradation of migrant workers at home and abroad. At the far end of the supply chain, Walmart's giant market in farm-raised shrimp ties into exploitative fishing boats in the Pacific region's infamous labor-trafficking system. Walmart profits indirectly from brutally enslaved and abused migrant labors, used to catch feed fish for the burgeoning aquaculture industry.
Walmart's "savings" from cheap labor gets passed through its US supply chain, too: The federal government recently cracked down on a Walmart egg supplier for "discriminatory practices" in intrusive screening of immigrant workers. One major lettuce supplier, Taylor Farms, has been hit by a wage-theft class-action lawsuit along with scandals over alleged union-busting and abuse of migrant workers in California.
In 2012, Walmart had to cut ties to scandalized seafood processor CJ's after workers complained of being forced to peel crawfish around the clock, and to suffer 80-hour workweeks, wage theft, and threats from the employer who had sponsored their guest-worker visas.
One such "blacklisted" worker, Martha Uvalle, told reporter Josh Eidelson that her boss had warned workers who challenged him, "I'll send you back to Mexico.... You'll never come back.'"
The combination of intimidation and market control runs throughout Walmart's much-hyped "Heritage Agriculture" program for farmers in the United States as well as "emerging markets" of China and India. In 2010, Walmart announced a five-year plan to "sell $1 billion worth of local food sourced from 1 million small and medium farmers," with potential growth in farmers' incomes by 10 to 15 percent. But five years on, participating growers have reportedly not seen the promised bounty and complain of unfair contracting. Similarly, the report notes, Walmart dominates in a corporatized milk market that decimates small dairy farmers, leading to severe industry consolidation and price drops of as much as 40 percent for farmers.
Some straight-up environmental crimes further stain Walmart's sustainability record: violations of the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and federal pesticide safety rules, threatening both habitats and public health in local communities.
Responding to the report, Walmart sent a statement to The Nation explaining that, "While there are complex issues inherent in the global supply chain, we bring together numerous stakeholders, NGOs and other private sector companies to help find solutions."
FCWA, which promotes labor organizing across all food sectors, believes in systemic solutions at the grassroots. That means not boosting organics production at the expense of the wages of Mexican strawberry farm workers, and ensuring that cheap groceries for poor families in Bakersfield don't come with the kind of hazardous waste Walmart has dumped around Los Angeles. The problem is that Walmart's business model profits by maldistributing the social costs of mass production across an atomized food chain.
The FCWA calls on Walmart to redistribute resources up the supply chain by raising the hourly base wage for its direct workforce to $15. It can then spread those ethics through similar minimum wages for US workers at Walmart suppliers and "comparable living wages in other countries," plus basic benefits like paid sick leave. And Walmart should support all workers' right to organize and pursue collective bargaining, which the company has long suppressed, even in its own stores.
Of course, many of these demands could be satisfied if Walmart just followed existing law. Hence the central contradiction of "corporate social responsibility": the concept of private-market voluntarism reflects the subordination of government to brands that put profit above the law. As the industry lobby presses for more tax breaks, corporate benevolence thrives as a manufactured solution to a crisis engineered by corporations. Ethics is reduced to a matter of noblesse oblige, not human rights.
FCWA Co-Director Jose Oliva says via e-mail, "Breaking labor and employment law has become part of the business model for these firms," citing a "supply chain dominance" model at Walmart that "has pushed most of these suppliers to the breaking point where they've incorporated law-skirting and all-out law-breaking into their business model." But beyond demanding social responsibility from Walmart, FCWA would support "a third-party entity that would have power independent of Walmart" overseeing the supply chain. Ideally, this would require the designated government regulatory agencies to be fulfilling their own legal responsibilities.
But could Walmart's consumers have it both ways, retaining low prices and maintaining fair standards for workers? Oliva says this can be done by spreading around the company's unethically sourced profits: "Pay fair wages and prices so that people can afford the good food. Just like Ford did in the 1930's, pay your workers so they can afford a dignified life and you create an upwards spiral. Walmart's profit margins can afford it."
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