Saturday, March 11, 2006
Guest Workers, Again
Guest worker program - again?
Guest Workers, Again 03/07/06 05:21 PM
Linda Chavez-Thompson, the executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO, has an op-ed on immigration in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today that hits a bunch of good notes, including: Temporary guest worker programs are not a cure-all. Real immigration reform cannot and should not be designed primarily to enlarge guest worker programs that have served only to provide employers with a steady stream of vulnerable, indentured workers they may exploit for commercial gain.Right. The historical experience is pretty clear on this. Between 1942 and 1964, when immigration was still very much restricted in the United States, the federal government operated the Bracero Program for agricultural work. Immigrants who enrolled were put in holding pens at the border, waited with their numbers for a job, and then stripped and "deloused" and shuttled off to the U.S., where they were bound to their employer and virtually powerless. - Bradford Plumer
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