The nation's largest labor organization, the AFL-CIO, broke with its Democratic allies on Tuesday, and reiterated its opposition to guest worker programs.
In February, leaders of the 54-union federation made it clear that a temporary guest worker program was unacceptable to the Democrat-supporting union organization:
"To embrace the expansion of temporary guest worker programs is to embrace the creation of an undemocratic, two-tiered society," AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told a news conference.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney released a statement yesterday saying:
Guest worker programs are a bad idea and harm all workers. They cast workers into a perennial second-class status, and unfairly put their fates into their employers' hands.
Sweeney's statement praised numerous provisions of the overall immigration legislation, particularly a part that gives illegal aliens an opportunity to apply for citizenship. Still, his criticism underscored the unusual political pressures at work as President Bush and Congress grapple with an emotional issue in the run-up to midterm elections.
The breakaway Service Employees International Union, which left the AFL-CIO in July, issued a statement supporting the legislation approved by the Judiciary Committee. The Service Workers support the McCain-Kennedy so-called immigration reform bill, euphemistically titled "The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act."
Opposition by the nation's largest labor organization, which represents more than 9 million workers and works closely with the Democratic party, is sure to slow the seemingly inevitable approval of a guest worker program.
Comments