Greg Butterfield

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 22, 2004
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY TO THE BOSSES:
BUSH'S IMMIGRATION POLICY DENOUNCED AS SERVITUDE


By Teresa Gutierrez

An empty piñata. A major gift to employers. The new bracero program. A
huge pool of temporary workers. Indentured servitude.

These are some of the responses to President George W. Bush's major
policy announcement on immigration.

On Jan. 7, Bush proposed what the mainstream media described as "a
sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration law." Bush said in part,
"Today I ask the Congress to join me in passing new immigration laws
that reflect [four] principles that meet America's economic needs and
live up to our highest ideals."

The principles he claimed to be upholding were: "1) America must control
its borders; 2) new immigration laws should serve the economic needs of
our country; 3) we should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants
in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully
or hope to do so; and 4) new laws should provide incentives for
temporary foreign workers to return permanently to their home countries
after their period of work in the United States has expired."

Bush's announcement was denounced within hours. Labor activists,
immigrants and their advocates immediately condemned the policy as anti-
immigrant and pro-boss.

For weeks, immigration advocates, various Latino organizations and some
members of Congress had anxiously waited to hear what stance Bush would
take on immigration.

Bush's announcement was key to a meeting to take place this week in
Mexico between himself and Mexican President Vicente Fox. Like other
Mexican presidents before him, Fox intensely reviews U.S. immigration
policy. Over half of the 8 to 12 million undocumented workers in this
country are from Mexico.

If any of these forces had naively expected a fair or just policy for
immigrant workers, they were sadly disappointed.

The White House's immigration proposal amounts to an election-year ploy
that will mainly benefit the bosses. Chan ces are it won't even be
enacted this year.

It does nothing to alleviate the dire sweatshop conditions immigrants
face in this country.

The Bush plan callously defies the sentiment of immigrants who in the
last few years have heroically stood up to decades of exploitation and
said "Basta ya"--enough is enough. As never before, from California to
Illinois to New York, immigrants are changing the face of labor and
organizing to defend their interests.

Bush's announcement is especially a slap in the face of the historic
Oct. 4, 2003, Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride and demonstration in
Queens, N.Y.

Over 100,000 immigrants came forth that day--at risk of deportation and
loss of wages and jobs--to demand dignity and rights.

The main slogan on Oct. 4 was amnesty. In his immigration plan, Bush
pointedly came out against this demand.

Bush said, "I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the
automatic path to citizenship."

A Mexican immigrant in New York City said after Bush's announcement: "I
have suffered years of abuse. My father died in Mexico last year and I
could not attend the funeral. I am separated from my wife and children.
I earn less than most other workers.

"I have earned my citizenship."

BRACERO VS. AMNESTY

One of the key features of Bush's proposal is a temporary worker
program. While the mainstream media has already sown confusion by
saying
that this "effectively amounts to an amnesty program" (New York Times,
Jan. 7), that is far from being true.

The temporary worker provision of Bush's new policy amounts to a new
"bracero" program.

"Bracero" refers to a policy enforced during World War II and through
the early 1960s. The program allowed Mexi can workers to come to the
United States legally for a specific time and for a specific industry.

The term stems from the Spanish word for arm--"brazos," as in "to
embrace."

The bracero program of the 1940s brought in cheap labor to work the
fields of Texas and other states at the mercy of the bosses. It was rife
with abuses. Work ers reported horrible conditions, often not getting
paid--and after serving their term of near-slave-labor, they were kicked
out of the United States.

These kinds of abuses continue today. An immigrant advocate said on Jan.
8 that agriculture workers in the U.S. often report that bosses pay them
for half a day although they worked a full day. Workers are told they
must "donate" a week's pay in order to come back the next summer.

The policy emanating from the White House will only aggravate this
situation.

Bush said on Jan. 7, "I propose a new temporary workers program that
will match willing foreign workers with willing American employers when
no Americans can be found to fill the jobs."

Immigrants, the White House said, might be able to obtain temporary
legal status for three years, and could reapply once. They must pay a
one-time fee to register for the program and their name will be entered
into a national database.

"This program expects temporary workers to return permanently to their
home countries after their period of work in the United States has
expired," Bush said.

According to the New York Times, "An undocumented worker and employer
would have to apply for the guest worker hand in hand, with the employer
serving as the sponsor for the worker."

Janice Fine, a researcher from the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in
the Boston Globe Jan. 11 that one reason Bush's plan is extremely flawed
is that bosses get too much power with the plan.

Fine reported on a national study she conducted that documents the same
abuses that "depressingly" occur over and over across the country:
"Unpaid wages, forced overtime, sky-high rates of injury on the jobs,
discrimination, sexual harassment and unjust firings. Workers who speak
up are fired and blacklisted. Employers routinely ignore government
regulations, and government monitoring in most of these industries is
terribly inadequate at best."

The researcher went on to point out that a huge number of immigrants
will not even be able to tap into the program because they work mainly
in the informal sector of the economy. Employers of gardeners, day
laborers, domestic workers, dishwashers and so on will not be inclined
to participate.

Why should they when the profits are so generous and the source of labor
so vulnerable?

Fine also pointed out that there is little incentive for the workers to
participate in the program, since citizenship is not guaranteed.

The program would result in workers "outing" themselves, with the
possibility, in return, of being deported at the end of the guest worker
program.

IMMIGRATION POLICY FOR THE CAPITALIST CLASS

Bush's announcement led to a flurry of media accounts that referred to
U.S. immigration policy as a "broken policy."

But the policy is far from broken. It may be underfunded and
understaffed in the opinion of some. And it may be ridiculously and
inhumanely bureaucratic.

According to a former counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, for example, since 2001 Bush promised to reduce the delays in
processing of immigration applications. Just the opposite has occurred.
The backlog has grown from 3.9 million to 6.2 million in the past two
years. (Washington Post, Jan. 11)

And ominously, the Department of Homeland Security inherited the duties
of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This makes immigration a
highly political issue tied directly to imperialism's so-called war on
terror.

But whether the system is efficient or not, U.S. immigration policy
functions exactly as it should--because it represents a capitalist
government that in turn represents the ruling class. It is this class
that ultimately sets policy--on immigration, on war in Iraq, on every
question.

This is the class that respects no borders. It is free to travel around
the globe creating the kind of economic and social conditions that force
workers to come here in the first place.

Bush said that it is wrong for "employers to turn to the illegal labor
market." But it is not the "labor market" that is illegal.

The truth is that the thousands of cockroach capitalists and the
unaccountable multinational corporations that employ undocumented
workers will never close their sweatshops or stop paying below-standard
wages. It is a cornerstone of the profit system.

The capitalist system--whose only drive is for war and profits--must
have at its command the ability to super-exploit immigrants. There is so
much profit to be made from their labor power.

That is why Bush's immigration policy is a gift to the bosses. It will
bring workers out of the shadows with the promise of temporary legal
status but at the beck and call of the employer.

The U.S. economy would not stand one hour without immigrant labor. Who
would deliver the food, cut the grass, build the offices, paint the
fingernails, chop the lettuce, pack the meat or take care of the
children?

In 2001, the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that the "unauthorized labor
force" totaled about 5.3 million workers. This included 700,000
restaurant workers, 250,000 household employees and 620,000 construction
workers.

Clearly, the capitalist system thrives on the labor of immigrants. It
depends on an immigration policy that creates a pool of cheap labor that
can be easily manipulated, paid as little as possible, where workers can
be brought into the country or deported as the economy demands and at
the whim of the bosses.

SOLUTION TO BUSH'S POLICY: SOLIDARITY

Behind George W. Bush's immigration policy is an attempt to divide
workers. It will inevitably mean a rise in racist, chauvinistic, anti-
immigrant backlash.

A climate of fear among U.S.-born workers will surely be fostered.
Workers will be forced to compete for jobs at a time when unemployment
is high and underemployment even higher.

This climate will be favorable for the bosses who will count on fear to
drive down wages. If Bush and the bosses prevail, living standards will
be lowered even more for all workers, here and around the world.

One immigrant told a reporter that he had no documentation, worked a
construction job paying $10 an hour but lost the job to a recent
immigrant willing to take $8. This immigrant expressed anger towards
newer immigrants, according to the article.

This is but one example that illustrates that the solution to U.S.
immigration policy is to organize. The solution is to wage an
independent campaign of solidarity among all workers.

Instead of workers being pitted against each other--by nationality, by
country of origin, by sexual orientation and so on--the answer is to
organize a multinational movement to demand an end to exploitation once
and for all, a movement that declares that there are no borders in the
workers' struggle.

In the short term, the progressive and working-class movement in the
United States should take to the streets in record numbers and demand
amnesty now for all immigrants. It should demand a major increase in the
minimum wage as well as jobs for all. Protecting the sovereign rights of
the nations of Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and so on must
be a cornerstone so that oppressed nations are free of International
Monetary Fund and imperialist intervention.

The time has come for labor, immigrants and the progressive movement in
the U.S. to conduct the kind of rich class struggles that led to the
glorious foundation of May Day and International Women's Day.

There are tremendous examples of struggles in this country we can look
to for inspiration.

The Latinos/as in California who recently led a major walkout to protest
the repeal of driver's license rights and the grocery workers fighting
for health care in Los Angeles are two such examples. Their victory will
be a victory for all workers.

On the East Coast, everyone is urged to converge in Freehold, N.J., on
Jan. 18. The mayor and a racist group want to push Latinos/as out of
Freehold and have carried out a chauvinistic campaign against day
laborers. But the workers are fighting back.

By taking a stand in Freehold on Jan. 18, U.S. and foreign-born workers,
African Americans, Latinos/as, whites, Asians, women and men, young and
old, will give George Bush exactly the kind of response his recent
immigration announcement deserves.

- END -

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Drvr1

They should be divided into two groups: those who will be allowed to
stay on the path to citizenship

(work permits to work without restriction, apply for

GC in 3 years etc) and those deported. Both numbers should

substantial to show compassion and show that laws have

consequences. Good morals, people with young children, years

of stay, family relations, willingness to come forward as soon as

possible, these can be used to keep say 70% and deport 30%-

by a point system that roughly achieves that distribution-

As part of this, the workers should give exact details about

their work conditions and their employers.



The employers should be fined and those with many

illegal workers should be jailed for say 2 years

(depending on work condtions as supplied by workers). The fines

should go to training for native low wage workers for more

skilled jobs. The fines should be large but can be paid

over time as needed for training costs.



Originally posted by Greg Butterfield

    > -------------------------

    > Via Workers World News Service

    > Reprinted from the Jan. 22, 2004

    > issue of Workers World newspaper

    > -------------------------


    > ANOTHER GIVEAWAY TO THE BOSSES:

    > BUSH'S IMMIGRATION POLICY DENOUNCED AS SERVITUDE



    > By Teresa Gutierrez


    > An empty piñata. A major gift to employers. The new bracero program. A

    > huge pool of temporary workers. Indentured servitude.


    > These are some of the responses to President George W. Bush's major

    > policy announcement on immigration.


    > On Jan. 7, Bush proposed what the mainstream media described as "a

    > sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration law." Bush said in part,

    > "Today I ask the Congress to join me in passing new immigration laws

    > that reflect [four] principles that meet America's economic needs and

    > live up to our highest ideals."


    > The principles he claimed to be upholding were: "1) America
    > must control

    > its borders; 2) new immigration laws should serve the economic
    > needs of

    > our country; 3) we should not give unfair rewards to illegal
    > immigrants

    > in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here
    > lawfully

    > or hope to do so; and 4) new laws should provide incentives for

    > temporary foreign workers to return permanently to their home
    > countries

    > after their period of work in the United States has expired."


    > Bush's announcement was denounced within hours. Labor activists,

    > immigrants and their advocates immediately condemned the policy as anti-

    > immigrant and pro-boss.


    > For weeks, immigration advocates, various Latino organizations
    > and some

    > members of Congress had anxiously waited to hear what stance
    > Bush would

    > take on immigration.


    > Bush's announcement was key to a meeting to take place this week in

    > Mexico between himself and Mexican President Vicente Fox. Like other

    > Mexican presidents before him, Fox intensely reviews U.S. immigration

    > policy. Over half of the 8 to 12 million undocumented workers in this

    > country are from Mexico.


    > If any of these forces had naively expected a fair or just policy for

    > immigrant workers, they were sadly disappointed.


    > The White House's immigration proposal amounts to an election-
    > year ploy

    > that will mainly benefit the bosses. Chan ces are it won't even be

    > enacted this year.