What we want from Secretary Solis

admin | February 25, 2009

TAKE ACTION!

Urge Secretary of Labor Solis to Revoke Exploitative Bush Administration Regulations

Dear Friends and Allies,

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was finally confirmed.  We look forward to a Department of Labor that fights for the rights and dignity of all workers, especially those most vulnerable in this economy. There is no time to waste.

The Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity has already written to Secretary Solis urging immediate action to reverse midnight regulations enacted by the Bush administration that exploit vulnerable guestworkers.

These regulations reversed the USDOL’s decades-long position that employers must reimburse guestworkers the thousands of dollars in fees they pay employers and their agents to obtain guestworker jobs in the United States. The Bush regulations contradicted judicial decisions by the Eleventh Circuit and every lower federal court that had previously ruled on the issue.

These fees force guestworkers to plunge their families into debt.  Then the crushing debt blocks guestworkers from protecting their fundamental labor rights, including the right to organize.

The charging of exorbitant fees to obtain guestworker jobs is one of the worst abuses of the H-2 guestworker program, under which U.S. businesses bring in tens of thousands of workers each year for low-skilled jobs that last less than one year.  Because guestworkers are prohibited by law from finding other work, they are highly vulnerable to abuse by unscrupulous employees who hold the power to send them home, in debt, if they complain about pay or working conditions.

The Bush regulations went into effect Jan. 18 – two days before the Obama administration took office.  Instead of reforming the guestworker program, the Bush Department of Labor gave more tools to employers who are shopping for the most exploitable workforce. This hurts workers from the United States and workers from other countries.

In an economic crisis, the DOL’s first order of business should be protecting the rights of workers, not the profits of employers.  In its last days, the Bush administration attacked guestworkers and undermined US workers

The Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity is demanding:

  • The Obama Administration’s USDOL should publicly reject and refuse to enforce the introduction to the regulations changing the USDOL’s longstanding position that point of hire travel and visa costs are for the primary benefit and convenience of the employer under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
  • The Obama Administration’s USDOL should appoint a special team of labor inspectors to the Gulf Coast that reports directly to the Secretary of Labor.  These inspectors should receive special training and have the language capacity to respond on an emergency basis to guestworkers who report severe labor exploitation.
  • The Secretary of Labor and other high level officials should meet with guestworkers who been imported to the United States Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina in order to hear three years worth of testimony about severe labor exploitation resulting from manipulation of the current guestworker program and the failure to enforce existing labor protections.  Testimony would also focus on the direct impact of the impact of the Bush Administration’s attacks on guestworkers and their effects undermining of U.S. workers.
  • The Obama Administration’s USDOL should work closely with the Obama Administration to expand and protect the right of guestworkers and all workers to organize including protections included in Employee Free Choice Act.
  • The Obama Administration’s USDOL should put the Bush Administration’s guestworker regulations on hold and start a new process to make rules that address the real protections guestworkers need including blocks to debt servitude and the right to organize.
  • The Obama Administration’s USDOL should commit the USDOL to playing a role in the Obama Administration’s development of a migration policy that ensure that foreign workers and families can enter the United States into dignified life and work, without being pitted against U.S. workers.

ACT NOW: The workers need your support! Here’s how you can help:

  • Tell the Obama Administration that your vision of change includes changing the exploitative Bush administration guestworker regulations immediately and protecting the rights of all workers to fundamental protections including the right to organize.  Include a similar paragraph to the following:

I support the members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity.  It’s very important that Secretary Solis act immediately to stop the effect of the exploitative Bush Administration guestworker regulations.  Enforcing basic protections including the minimum wage and the right to organize is necessary to protect all workers.  In an economic crisis, the DOL’s first order of business should be protecting the rights of workers, not the profits of employers.

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Guestworkers Launch Strike To Expose Tennessee Employer Who Violated Federal Law – 2/18/09

admin | February 18, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Contact:
Jacob Horwitz (504) 452 9159
Saket Soni (504) 881 6610

Guestworkers Launch Strike To Expose Tennessee Employer Who Violated Federal Law

Prominent labor broker defrauded US government to import guestworkers and lease them across the South; H2B visa workers were made to work on military bases

NASHVILLE, TN — Guestworkers trapped in Nashville came forward today to expose the racket of prominent labor broker who defrauded the U.S. government to import workers and lease them across the South. Workers launched a strike, charged the employer with illegal retaliation against organizing, and demanded that the Department of Labor investigate the employer for fraud.

Workers are members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, a membership organization of guestworkers across industries in the South.

The labor broker, Gary Lang, submitted fraudulent applications to the U.S. government, claiming that workers would be working for his company, Cumberland Environmental Resources, Inc., on site in Brentwood, TN. He swore to the U.S. government that he had these jobs and he could not find U.S. workers to fill them.

Workers from Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Costa Rica paid thousands in recruitment fees to Cumberland’s agents for the jobs. When the workers arrived, they learned that the jobs they had been promised did not exist.

Workers languished for weeks, sometimes months, waiting for the work they were promised.  “We drowned our families in debt to pay thousands of dollars in recruitment fees to Cumberland’s agents,” said Miguel Angel Jovel, one of the workers.   “Cumberland held us hostage to the hope of jobs that didn’t exist.”

Finally, instead of providing the promised jobs, Cumberland leased the workers out to other contractors across the South.  These included contractors working on local, state, and federal government worksites.  Workers were employed on Maxwell Airforce Base in Alabama, Camp Lejuene in North Carolina, Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Veteran’s Hospital in Nashville, and universities across the South including University of Tennessee, Tennessee Tech, University of Kentucky, David Lipscomb, and others.

Workers filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint, charging that Cumberland illegally retalited against their efforts to organize.

“Cumberland violated their contract with us — and with their own U.S. government,” said Tomas Arias. “When we asked to see our contracts, Cumberland refused.”

When workers asked for a meeting Cumberland, Cumberland threatened workers with termination and deportation, interrogated workers about their organizing efforts, and attempted to force workers to sign away their right to organize in closed-door meetings.  When workers stood up for their dignity and rights and pressed for a meeting, Cumberland retaliated by firing them.

Workers and advocates called on the Department of Labor to investigate Cumberland’s fraud.

“Companies like Cumberland benefited when the Bush Administration passed its midnight guestworker  regulations days before leaving office. The message to employers was: relax, we just made it easier for you to import and exploit foreign workers,” said Saket Soni, Director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. “The White House and the Department of Labor need to throw the Bush regulations and replace them with real protections for all workers,” said Soni.

The Bush Administration’s H2B regulations, which came into effect just days before President Obama took office, have drawn widespread outrage from workers and advocates.

Clergy, labor, and civil rights leaders endorsed the workers’ strike and their call for justice on Wednesday. Tennessee AFL-CIO president Jerry Lee expressed “shock” at Cumberland’s practices.

“Shame on Cumberland, and shame on our system for letting the employer exploit these workers,” Lee said. “At a time when joblessness is at its highest point worldwide, this employer uses the guestworker program to exploit foreign workers and undermine American workers. And when the workers bravely speak out, the employer attacks the workers for organizing.”

“That’s not America,” Lee said. “Or at least it shouldn’t be.”

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