May 27, 2006

"Guest Workers" To Get Higher Wages, More Protections Than American Workers?

That is what I'm getting from this post over at Euphoric Reality. Here are some of the elements the new "immigration bill" includes, according to Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector.

*The bill supposedly would protect American workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However, the bill's definition of ''United States worker'' includes temporary foreign guest workers, so the protection is meaningless.

*It extends the Davis-Bacon Act's requirement for the payment of ''prevailing wage'' to all temporary guest workers. That puts them ahead of Americans, who have this protection only on federal job sites.

*Foreign guest farm workers, admitted under the bill, cannot be ''terminated from employment by any employer ... except for just cause.'' In contrast, American ag workers can be fired for any reason.

Now what that means is that foreign workers admitted under the guest-worker provisions won't just get "jobs that Americans won't do" -- they potentially can get jobs that Americans want to do, if the employer prefers to hire foreign workers. It guarantees them the "prevailing wage" -- usually the union scale, while not guaranteein American workers that wage. Furthermore, it eliminates the "at will" employment provisions of most state laws in relation to these foreign workers -- meaning that they have a level of job security denied American citizens. So let's see here -- equal rights to American jobs, higher wages guaranteed, and more job security than American workers have. Remind me whose county this is again, and who the members of the US Senate represent?

Kate O'Beirne and Mickey Kaus have more.

Posted by: Greg at 03:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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