Immigration Policy Must Protect Workers’ Rights

Last week Congressmen Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) introduced the first piece of legislation in the 110th Congress that deals with reform of the immigration law. We welcome that step as a signal that our legislators are ready to begin a serious dialogue on one of the most important issues facing working families.

The AFL-CIO is currently analyzing the Flake-Gutierrez proposal through the lens of workers’ rights. Any path to legalization that requires people to “touch back” will not benefit workers because it will simply perpetuate a two-tiered society. A massive new temporary worker program will hurt labor standards in the US, especially if it doesn’t guarantee that employers won’t use the programs to bypass US labor and employment laws, as they often do now. The historic report recently issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center painfully documents what happens to workers who labor in such programs, even when those programs purport to have so-called labor protections.

We look forward to a rich dialogue on these important issues on immigrant workers’ rights as this bill moves through the legislative process.