Organized Labor Report Lays Groundwork For Comprehensive Immigration Reform

This press release comes from our allies at the National Immigration Forum. The National Immigration Forum is the leading immigrant advocacy organization in the country with a mission to advocate for the value of immigrants and immigration to the nation.

For Immediate Release
October 27, 2009

Contact:
Katherine Vargas (kvargas@immigrationforum.org)
(202) 383-5987 or (202) 641-51988 (mobile)

ORGANIZED LABOR REPORT LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

Washington, DC - Today, the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project released a report on how harsh immigration enforcement has "severely interfered with the protection of workers' rights, to the detriment of immigrant and native-born workers alike." The following is a statement by Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan, non-profit pro-immigrant advocacy organization in Washington.

Our deficient immigration system has created an uneven playing field that allows unscrupulous employers to exploit and intimidate immigrant workers and which undermines labor protections and wages, thus eroding workplace conditions for every worker.

Today's report raises the voices of organized labor - the authentic voice of working class Americans - and their support for robust regulation of labor laws and enforceable immigration laws. The labor movement realizes, as immigration reform advocates do, that improved wage and hour enforcement helps good employers and workers alike.

As long as we have 5.4% of the American workforce outside of the system and not protected by basic labor laws, good employers and American workers will continue to be out-hustled by unscrupulous employers that take advantage of our broken immigration laws.

We need comprehensive reform of our immigration system to ensure a legal workforce, protect all workers and restore fairness to the labor market.

Read more »

Op-Ed: Minimum-wage workers in Oregon are better off

by Larry Kleinman

On July 24, the minimum hourly wage increased to $7.25.

For Oregonians who earn, who pay or who pay attention to the minimum wage, that's strange to hear. Isn't the hourly minimum in Oregon $8.40?

Explanation: The federal minimum wage increased last week — from $6.55 to $7.25.

Oregonians rarely think about the federal minimum wage because, in practice, it's had virtually no meaning here for two decades. With the exception of a three-month period in 1996, Oregon's minimum wage has consistently been higher than the federal minimum. (Workers are entitled to receive the higher of the two.)

Today, Oregon remains one of 13 states that have a minimum wage which is higher than the federal one. On July 23, the day before the latest federal increase, 30 states had minimum wage rates higher than the federal one.

In 1989, a broad-based coalition of unions, social service groups, churches and community organizations tired of waiting for Congress to give low-wage workers a raise. The federal minimum wage had been $3.35 since 1981. In "real" terms, accounting for inflation, the minimum wage workers' pay went down 30 percent during those eight years.

The coalition lobbied the 1989 Oregon Legislature to pass SB 335; it raised Oregon's minimum from $3.35 to $4.75 by 1991. The federal minimum wage didn't catch up until 1996.

Organized labor played a dominant role in passing SB 335. In 1996 and again in 2002, signature gathering, funded and championed principally by organized labor, put minimum wage increase initiatives on the ballot. By wide margins, voters approved both initiatives which have ushered in 10 increases … and counting. The 2002 measure instituting "indexing" — small annual increases based on a cost-of-living formula.

Meanwhile, in 1997, the federal hourly minimum stalled at $5.15. This time, it took Congress 10 years to approve increases. The third of three annual steps was the increase to $7.25 that took effect July 24, 2009.

Few, if any workers under union contracts in Oregon are paid the minimum wage. Organized labor's role in raising the minimum wage demonstrates a commitment to boosting standards for all workers, not just union members. Like the bumper sticker says: "The weekend: brought to you by the labor movement."

In this case, it's $45,000. That's how much an Oregon minimum worker, employed full-time during the past 20 years, has earned above the federal rate.

Economists debate the effects of a higher minimum wage. In lower-income communities such as Woodburn, where I live and work, higher wages mean more economic activity because workers tend to spend most of their income at local businesses. In communities such as ours, an average of $2,250 more income per worker per year is multiplied as it circulates around town.

I hope that Congress follows Oregon's example by indexing the federal minimum wage. And, better yet, add increases to actually catch up to Oregon's standard. That way, when we read or hear that the minimum wage is going up, we'd know that workers throughout the country have what we, today, take for granted.

Larry Kleinman of Woodburn is the secretary-treasurer of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Oregon's farmworker union. He can be reached at larrykleinman@pcun.org.

Read more »

Nation's Largest Labor Federations Announce Support for Immigration Reform

The nation’s two largest organized labor federations, AFL-CIO and Change To Win (UFCW, SEIU, UNITE HERE, UFW, LIUNA, Teamsters and Carpenters unions), have come out together in support of passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

This announcement follows last week's statement from the White House that the President would push for passage of immigration reform this year.

The AFL-CIO’s and Change to Win's accord endorses legalizing undocumented immigrants that already work and live in the United States.

John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO told the New York Times that, "The labor movement will work together to make sure that the White House as well as Congress understand that we speak about immigration reform with one voice."

For more on the story, visit the New York Times at this link

Read more »