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Home > Press Room > 2008 > Press Release
Press Release
Bush Administration Seeks To Curtail Labor Protections From the Guest Worker H-2A Program.
February 25, 2008
For more information, contact:
Javier Dominguez, 202-833-6130 ext. 12
Washington, DC – The League of
United Latin American Citizens, our nation’s
oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights
organization, is outraged by the Bush
Administration’s attempt to modify the H-2A
temporary foreign agricultural worker program.
The lengthy proposal calls for
a new wage formula that would slash a
farmworker’s wage rate, and weaken an employer’s
housing requirements by providing a precariously
defined ‘housing voucher’. Typically, there is
no housing available for agricultural workers
therefore a housing voucher would be
ineffective. The proposal also removes an
employer’s obligation to first recruit US
citizens and legal permanent residents before
hiring guestworkers.
“The Bush Administration’s H2A
proposal is nothing more than stripping away
existing labor protections,” said LULAC National
President Rosa Rosales. “It does nothing to
address the fundamental needs of immigration
reform.”
“This proposal is simply
unacceptable; it will result in lowering wages,
and worsen already deplorable worker conditions
for farm laborers,” said Jaime P. Martinez,
LULAC National Labor Advisor. “Farmworkers’
wages are already exploited. Imposing these new
wage formulas would do more harm than good.”
LULAC advocates for a
comprehensive, bipartisan approach to any farm
labor bill, principally the Agricultural Job
Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act (AgJOBS)
a bill that would provide a decent standard of
living and decent working conditions with labor
right protections.
The League of United Latin
American Citizens, the largest and oldest
Hispanic membership organization in the country,
advances the economic conditions, educational
attainment, political influence, health and
civil rights of Hispanic Americans through
community-based programs operating at more than
700 LULAC councils nationwide.
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