Immigration: Hillary supported "close to slavery". Bernie did not.

[Luminous Animal]

Last edited Fri Dec 11, 2015, 12:58 AM - Edit history (1)

Guest workers only for farms, to address labor shortage

Q: You oppose guest worker program saying that it exploits workers, but you would carve out a special program for agricultural workers. Why single out agriculture and not other industries, like the hotel & hospitality industry here?
A: Well, for a couple of reasons. For one, there is a shortage of farm workers. This is a sector of the economy that over decades has been demonstrated to be very difficult to attract legal workers. That is not true yet in the hotel industry and the hospitality industry. So I would like to solve what is clearly a shortage-of-labor problem in the agricultural sector. I’d like to see it be a part of comprehensive immigration reform. In the absence of that, what’s happening is that farmers in California are starting to move their production facilities to Mexico and Latin American. It’s going to be a lose-lose for us if we don’t get that agricultural problem fixed.

CLOSE TO SLAVERY: GUESTWORKER PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES
https://www.splcenter.org/20130218/close-slavery-guestworker-programs-united-states

[Thinkingabout]

1. How many years has there been an "Agricultural" program?

[Luminous Animal]

2. What does have to do with Hillary supporting almost slavery in 2007-2008?

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Man.....you guys are getting desperate.

Polls got you down?

[Luminous Animal]

6. Nope. I did not support the immigration act of 2007 for the same reason Bernie did not...

near slave conditions for guest workers. Hillary and a host of other Democrats had no problem supporting a program that is and was close to slavery.

Sanders and Ted Kennedy actually held hearings around this issue.

I respect Sanders' stance in voting against an immigration bill that allowed for slave like conditions for "guest" workers.

I have zero respect for pols like Hillary who defend near slavery.

[Thinkingabout]

13. Are these post supposed to negate Sanders vote on the immigration bill?

Any vote Hillary may or may not have takes does not excuse Sanders vote on the immigration bill. Agricultural workers have been working under "close to slavery" for a very long time. When Hillary was working for CDF she went into the migrant camps to locate children and determine what it would take to get those children in school, see about their health care, not a lot of people would have tried to aid the children.

[Bluenorthwest]

31. Interestingly, only about half of the guest workers of the H2A program are farmworkers

The other half, fishing, cannery, landscaping, hospitality and other fields apart from agriculture. Yep.

[Thinkingabout]

5. You tell me.

[Luminous Animal]

8. I already did. Hillary supports close to slave labor. Bernie does not.

[Thinkingabout]

12. Who isn't getting paid?

[passiveporcupine]

15. woosh!

[NCTraveler]

28. This could be one of the greatest sentences of desperation I have ever read here. nt.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. The SPLC title is taken from a quote by Charlie Rangle:

“This guestworker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

So take complaints to Charlie, I'd say. It's his verbiage.

[JaneyVee]

4. Slavery is forced unpaid labor against your will.

And Bernie forced them to stay on the farm by voting against immigration reform in 2007.

[Luminous Animal]

7. Thus the title.. "Close to Slavery". Still haven't read the report have you?

Still haven't read the "Close to Slavery" report by the Southern Poverty Law Conference that eviscerates Hillary's stance on close to slave labor.

[JaneyVee]

9. But Hillary is the one who has been...

Calling for them to have a path to citizenship. Bernie kept them hanging on the farm.

[Luminous Animal]

10. He refused to vote for a bill that would keep guest workers close to slavery. H voted for it.

Guest workers are not provided a path to citizenship. They are provided a path to misery and little recourse to alleviate misery.

Hillary supported a path to misery. Bernie voted against.

[JaneyVee]

11. Are you referring to H1b?

Yes they can have a path to citizenship. And if any employers are exploiting the program that's just a failure of the federal govt on oversight. Most H1b workers are paid very well: http://www.h1bwage.com/

So again, instead of letting foreigners have jobs, Bernie left them all out to dry.

[Godhumor]

18. Agriculture is an H2A not an H1B. n/t

[Turn CO Blue]

23. This again? This blind faith in promoting the H1B program as above board needs challenging.

The repeated talking point lately that H1B is innocuous or not hurting workers was shot down by several DUers last night -- so seeing this meme again today just boggles.

And belies what's documented in the courts and in the news. Disney IT department - major news story - a couple of months ago? Ring a bell?

H1B is an outsourcing scheme for high-tech jobs, pure and simple.
And it is ripe with abuse of the foreign workers who are threatened and basically become indentured servants.

The program is working just as the rightwing thinktanks and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) want it to function.

Virtually ALL of the H1B visas go to software writing jobs - and over twenty percent (over 17000 visas) go to just FOUR very large high-tech outsourcing companies based in India. The REAL goal is outsourcing.

Here are some reputable sources for your edification -- or not -- about what H1B has morphed into in the few years, thanks to Republican Senators, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Iger and untold numbers of high-tech CIOs.


Visa Program Hijacked by Outsourcers
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/03/30/visa-program-has-been-hijacked-outsourcers/VAg6o9KgS2tuoZ3WbmaqeK/story.html

Disney Last Task After Layoff, Train Foreign Replacements
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html

Defenders of the H1B program - trying to triple the number of Visas:
Robert Iger, Disney’s CEO is a co-chair (along with Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch) of the Partnership For a New American Economy
The organization promotes tripling the current 85,000 available H-1B visas under a program called “I-Squared” that was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). With this kind of reform, we won’t get a new economy. We’ll get a lot more pink slips for Americans in STEM jobs.

Jobs Brokers Entrap Indian Tech Workers
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/28/-sp-jobs-brokers-entrap-indian-tech-workers



_______
I like Hillary. I like Bernie. I'm basically neutral. I despise unfounded critique, cherry-picking and irrational rhetoric from either camp.

[oasis]

32. UFW co-founder, Dolores Huerta,decided to endorse Hillary over Bernie.

Could that be the reason?

[UglyGreed]

34. Sixteen tons

Some of Hamilton Growers’ H-2 guest workers pay to live in school buses near the company’s headquarters.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

[Luminous Animal]

14. Kick

[passiveporcupine]

16. We've always treated farm workers like slaves.

Farmers need seasonal workers. Not year round. They do have some jobs that are year-round, but most are seasonal, when it's time to harvest crops or process them in canneries. We always underpay these workers. That's one reason why it's hard to find workers to fill these jobs. That and the job insecurity and the need to constantly move from place to place to find the jobs. How many people are willing to live a nomadic life like that? Foreigners who are desperate to come to the US...that's who. We need to fix this system, so anyone might consider those jobs, not just cheap foreign slaves willing to work for min or less wages (counting all hours and travel time et cetera.

Hillary thinks visas to bring in cheap workers is the answer (yes...lets support the slave system this country was always built on). Bernie wants to pay fairer wages and bennies and give them better standards of living and security. And that might mean raising wages and even raising the cost of those food products in the market place. I'm OK with that. Why should we eat well while slave labor is producing that food for us?

Not only that, many farmers are going to have to leave California if we don't do something to address the drought there anyway.

[UglyGreed]

35. just bouncing off your comment

oh but our produce will cost so much more so we basically need to enslave others so we can buy cheap tomatoes and peas.

[Godhumor]

17. You know she voted for the amendment to end the proposed guest worker program after 5 years, right?

The only difference is she still voted for the omnibus reform bill that now included the amendment. Sanders did not.

[Luminous Animal]

19. Oh. Only 5 years a slave.

[Godhumor]

20. So when the SPLC calls the 2013 Act for guest workers almost as bad, which they did

And Bernie voted for the 2013 bill. Does he also support almost slavery? Or is that different because he made a pretty speech about how he wished it did more, but he couldn't justify detailing the whole reform?

Oh wait, that is almost exactly what Hillary did in 2007. Except she voted for an amendment limiting those acts to 5 years instead of just complaining about them.

Bernie also voted for the 5 year amendment in 2007, by the way.

[Luminous Animal]

21. Hahahaha. Nice slight of hand. The SPLC report has nothing to do with the 2013 bill.

[Godhumor]

25. No... The report you linked to contains their current day position on guest workers

It was written in 2007, updated in early 2013 and still their official position.

Here is an excerpt from the current guest worker rights front page:

Unlike U.S. citizens, they do not enjoy even the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market – the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they’re bound to the employers who “import” them. If guest workers complain about abuses, they face deportation, the loss of their investment, blacklisting or other retaliation.

Employers hold all the cards. To obtain their jobs, guest workers frequently must pay exorbitant fees to unscrupulous labor recruiters, leaving them deeply in debt and vulnerable to abuse. Many are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to live in squalid conditions, subjected to labor trafficking, denied proper medical care or compensation for injuries, or held virtually captive by employers and labor brokers who confiscate their visas and identity documents. Meanwhile, the federal government has utterly failed to uphold their rights.

Guest workers have been compared to modern-day indentured servants. But unlike the indentured servants of old, today’s guest workers have no prospect of becoming U.S. citizens. When their temporary work visas expire, they must leave the United States. They are, in effect, the disposable workers of the U.S. economy.

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel called the program it “the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

--------

That is still their position after 2013. Since voting for the comprehensive package apparently equals support for almost slavery, Sanders is in exactly the same damn boat.

Does this call for a mic drop? I sure think it does.

https://www.splcenter.org/issues/immigrant-justice/guest-workers

[pnwmom]

22. Hillary voted with the vast majority of Dems to support the Immigration Reform Act.

Bernie voted with the Rethugs, for whatever reason.

[restorefreedom]

24. typical republican solution to a problem

instead of addressing the basic issue...that the ag industry treats people (and animals) like shit which is why they can't keep workers, just keep pumping more low paid and unrepresented serfs into the slots.

not a dem solution...point against hillary

[cosmicone]

26. Slavery???????????? LMAO

How do you spell desperation?

[Bluenorthwest]

30. It's a Charlie Rangel quote about the guest worker program:

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel put it this way: “This guestworker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”
https://www.splcenter.org/20130218/close-slavery-guestworker-programs-united-states

SPLC took his quote as their title, the OP used their title. I agree it is very strong language.

[Scuba]

27. There is no "shortage of labor" problem in agriculture. There is a shortage of living wage problem.

Raise wages and workers will apply for the jobs.


Of course Hillary doesn't support a living wage and wants a more modest increase to the minimum wage than is needed to make it a living wage.

She's a long-time advocate for more H1B Visas.

[WillyT]

33. K & R !!!