Washington, D.C. June 7, 2007
Global Workers attended a House of Representative’s Education and Labor Committee Hearing on “Protecting U.S. and Guest Workers: the Recruitment and Employment of Temporary Foreign Labor.” Representative George Miller called the hearing, in part to discuss his bill (H.R. 1763) on labor recruiter accountability. The hearing mostly discussed broad points of immigration reform. Three of the witnesses (including Global Workers’ Advisory Board member , Mary Bauer) highlighted the major flaws with the current H-2 Guest Worker program (no real labor test to determine lack of available US workers; chronic exploitation of the guest workers; legal obstacles to organizing guest workers) while one witnesses argued to stream line the administrative process and expand the program.
Although the time was limited (5 minutes each of witness testimony then questions from the committee members), the lack of portable justice issues was notable. The immigration reform debate is so polarized that it remains on a superficial level (guest workers or not; legalization of unauthorized persons or not). As a result, it lacks an in-depth and serious examination of the current guest worker program and how it affects the foreign workers while laboring in the USA and in their own countries. Global Workers wil contnue to monitoring and write more about the current immigration debate on the hill.