Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Republicans Invite “Guest Workers” To Further Exploitation

A new bill proposed by the GOP attempts to revise H-2A visas and make massive cuts to salaries, workers’ right to housing, and other rights.

Alex Osorio

November 6, 2017
Facebook Twitter Share

Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has presented the Agricultural Guestworkers Act in an attempt to reform the system that regulates the H-2A visa for agricultural workers. This will also affect H-2B visas issued to temporary non-agricultural workers. A total of more than 132 thousand workers will be affected.

The bill includes dramatic salary cuts, the elimination of the employer’s obligation to pay for worker’s housing, and workers’ right to sue their bosses. It was approved last Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee in a vote of 17 to 16 and will now be sent to the House and the Senate.

The new H-2C visa, the proposed replacement for the H-2A, would extend the number of visas granted from 66 thousand to 450 thousand. Libertarian groups who have long decried government intervention in “the free market,” such as the CATO Institute and the Immigration Center for Global Liberty, have backed the bill.

Democrats in the House, however, have come out against the bill, saying they have been fighting for a version of immigration reform that offers permanent-resident status for at least some farm workers and that this bill is actually worse than prior proposals. Indeed, it does allow employers to exploit workers with the new visa by removing them from the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

John Conyers Jr., House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, points out that “the current wage system for farmworkers — the ‘Adverse Effect Wage Rate’ — [has] a wage floor of 115% of the Federal minimum wage — or $8.34 an hour,” but that the new legislation, “will result in wage decreases of up to $5.00 per hour for farmworkers in certain parts of the country.”

The farming fields of the U.S. are seen as the only option by thousands of unemployed Mexicans and Central Americans who are unable to find a job in their home countries and are forced by their lack of employment and poor living conditions to emigrate. It’s hardly a secret that that life is hell in the fields, with 12-hour workdays and deaths due to working conditions.

The GOP wants to pass the Agricultural Guestworkers Act and take advantage of the need for farming jobs because it will allow them to expand low-cost production at the expense of the workers. The changes allow employers to pay poverty wages and remove worker protections, relying on the fact that the increase in competition will create a surplus labor force that will make workers more easily replaceable.

The bosses already exploit the most impoverished workers of countries south of the border through poverty wages even as they make millions in profits. They are now trying to take advantage of a reactionary political environment and the criminalization faced by migrant workers. These opportunities, incited by Trump, have encouraged them to propose a bill with the sole aim of multiplying their profits at the cost of workers’ lives.

Facebook Twitter Share

United States

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024
Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024
President Biden giving his State of the Union speech at a podium in March, 2024.

Biden’s State of the Union: Hyper-Nationalism and Eroding Legitimacy

President Biden’s hyper-nationalistic State of the Union speech focused on selling himself as a defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it’s not enough to solve his — and the whole U.S. regime’s — crisis of legitimacy.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 14, 2024

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024