Labor & Employment Law

Holt Baker: Broken Immigration System Benefits Corporations

By Tula Connell

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the crowd Sunday that the broken immigration systems allows employers to exploit workers.

Some 200,000 people turned out in Washington, D.C., Sunday for a massive rally in support of immigration reform. Among the speakers, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker thanked the organizers of the rally, saying:

NOTHING in this country is more powerful than people united for change. And do we ever need change. We are here, as a united labor movement to tell Congress that we MUST pass comprehensive immigration reform.

The broken system is benefiting the very same corporate giants who destroyed our economy. It is allowing those corporations to exploit workers by underpaying them, or not paying them at all, simply because of their immigration status. As long as employers have a pool of workers who are too scared to complain, those corporations will continue to profit and workplace standards will continue to go down.

Some 200,000 supporters of immigration reform gathered in Washington, D.C., yesterday.

The AFL-CIO calls for immigration reform include:

• Legalization for the undocumented.
• An independent commission to assess and manage future immigration based on real needs and real labor market shortages.
• A secure, effective?and fair?worker authorization mechanism.
• Rational control of U.S. borders.
• Improvement, not expansion, of temporary worker programs, limited to temporary, not permanent, jobs.

These are the principles of the labor movement?we are united in support.

Immigration reform is one of many changes that are desperately needed if we are going to give all working families a fair shot at the American Dream. Working together, we have to change this system.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).