WASHINGTON (PAI)--The overwhelming raids on workplaces carried out during the last several years by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency hurt the workers rights not just of the few undocumented workers who are rounded up, but of all workers, a new report lays out in detail.
Iced Out, by American Rights at Work, the National Employment Law Project and the AFL-CIO, recommends massive changes in immigration law enforcement. The Democratic Obama administration -- reversing the policies of the prior GOP Bush government -- has already said it will concentrate on pursing employers who exploit undocumented workers, rather than rounding up the workers themselves.
The issue is important because, as unions point out in campaigning or comprehensive immigration reform -- including a path to let the estimated 11 million-12 million undocumented workers start on the road to legal residence -- venal employers exploit those workers, and use them as a threat to native-born workers’ living standards.
The report says 43% of workers in organizing drives in industries with high proportions of non-native workers were threatened with ICE enforcement action.
“Focusing on raids and other types of immigration enforcement without regard to enforcement of labor and employment laws does not address what is really sustaining illegal immigration — the virtually unfettered ability of employers to exploit immigrant workers economically,” said the AFL-CIO’s Ana Avendaño, a co-author of the report.
“In recent years our federal government’s approach to immigration enforcement severely interfered with the protection of labor rights for immigrant workers. The single-minded focus on enforcement without regard to violations of workplace laws enabled employers with rampant labor and employment violations to profit by employing workers who are terrified to complain about substandard wages, unsafe conditions, and lack of benefits, or to demand their right to bargain collectively,” the 44-page report says.
“To protect workers’ rights and to remove the perverse economic incentives that drive employment of unauthorized workers, the balance between worksite immigration enforcement and labor standards enforcement must be recalibrated. Labor inspectors must have access to willing complainants and witnesses to pursue the worst labor law offenders. Employers should not be allowed to retaliate against workers who stand up for their rights by reporting these workers to immigration authorities,” the report adds.
Too often, the report notes, ICE raids occurred “based on media and other accounts of immigrant-dominated worksites where labor disputes are occurring.” That’s what happened, under Bush, during several prominent unionization drives, notably by UFCW at Smithfield’s 5,500-worker pork processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., and when that union’s Minnesota-based locals were gearing up to organize the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Iowa, where labor law violations were rampant.
“When immigration authorities become aware of worksite labor complaints in the course of their investigations, they should step aside and let their co-equal agencies, such as the Department of Labor (DOL), investigate. Finally, when authorities become aware of labor abuses in the course of worksite enforcement actions, workers should be screened for eligibility for special visas as victims of those abuses,” the report says.
But that’s not the way ICE worked, the report added.
“In too many instances, Immigration and Customs Enforcement worksite raids prevented meaningful enforcement of labor standards for all workers. ICE actions created incentives for shady employers to continue hiring and abusing undocumented workers, since the deportation of their employees may excuse those employers from complying with labor laws,” it notes.
After detailing violations of workers’ rights and ICE raids in plants ranging from Agriprocessors to
* Establishing an interagency taskforce to oversee development and implementation of policies -- after regular and public meetings -- to ensure enforcement of immigration laws does not interfere with workers’ exercise of their rights;
* “ICE should revive its policy of non-interference in labor disputes.” That policy was in the agency’s instruction manual for its agents. “ICE should revise (its) labor dispute operating instruction to ensure immigration enforcement, including audits, does not interfere with workers’ exercise of workplace rights in all instances, not only when enforcement is based on tips from employers.
* “ICE should ensure definition of labor dispute encompasses all labor and employment rights, including the right to join a union and bargain collectively, be paid the minimum wage and overtime, to have safe work places, to receive compensation for work-related injuries, to be free from discrimination…or to retaliate against employees for seeking to vindicate these rights.”
The agency should also order all its field offices to follow those standards. And it should train not only its own officers but also state and local law enforcement personnel who agree to take on immigration enforcement roles in how to follow those rules.
* ICE should contact DOL and other federal agencies before it goes on a workplace raid, to make sure it isn’t stepping in just on an employer’s request and harming workers’ rights. And it should contact the other agencies, including the Justice Department, DOL and the National Labor Relations Board, “if, during an enforcement action, workplace violations are discovered that were not previously identified.”
* “ICE should require agents to document the source of any ‘tips,’ and reject ‘tips’ from employers or individuals who refuse to identify themselves. ICE should not target worksite raid or enforcement based on media reports or accounts of worker assertion of labor rights…and ICE should inform ‘tipsters’ it is a violation of federal labor law to report workers to ICE in retaliation for workers’ exercise of their rights,” the report adds.
“And ICE should not initiate any worksite enforcement action if an employer or other entity -- including local law enforcement -- calls ICE with a ‘tip’ when a labor dispute is in progress. ICE should refer any employer or its agent who reports workers to ICE during a labor dispute for prosecution by the appropriate agency,” it adds.
The report also says ICE should not spy “at the site of a vigil, picket or any
other lawful demonstration in support of workers” and its agent “should not masquerade as personnel from an agency or organization that enforces health and safety or other labor laws, provides health care or domestic violence services, or any other services intended to protect life and safety.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration complained loudly for several years about ICE agents masquerading as OSHA safety inspectors. In the GOP Bush government, which conducted massive ICE workplace raids to appease the Republicans’ anti-Hispanic “base,” the agency’s complaints fell on deaf ears. ###
