Employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers should be maintain/replace
It was said that ‘employer sanctions’ is a misnomer, as signed by President Reagan, employer sanctions was supposedly enacted to protect jobs for U.S. citizens by punishing employers with a fine for knowingly hiring undocumented worker but, it is a fact that there were few employers are actually sanctioned under the law like for instance, the government issued to employers a total of only three notices of intent to fine, the limited number of enforcement actions against employers, there are strong political and economic interests that favor expanding the supply of cheap labor. Generally, it is not the employers that are punished by the law, but working people in a specific country. (, 2001) The government gives employers a ‘hoodwink and a nod’ to hire undocumented workers, authorizing them to wield unchecked power and to use immigration status to legally exploit workers. Moreover, by denying undocumented workers the right to make a living, our government creates an underclass of laborers who are criminalized and forces them to accept the most undesirable, inhumane working conditions and to compete with undocumented workers, native-born Americans and documented workers must then lower their standards or else be replaced by cheaper labor, fueling a cycle of resentment and hostility among working people. (, 2001)
The real purpose behind is argued to be that the purported intent of employer sanctions was to deter illegal immigration and to protect American jobs by targeting the demand for undocumented workers. Yet, government, community groups, labor unions and scholars recognize that employer sanctions have accomplished neither goal. However, the employer sanctions did not protect – it made the undocumented workforce even more attractive by stripping away their rights to demand fair conditions and forcing U.S. citizens and documented workers to compete with them in a race-to-the-bottom. Aside, it did not deter, only increased the demand for a vulnerable group of workers and invigorated employer demand for cheap labor. (, 2001) Today, it is believed that there are almost eleven million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. involving a dramatic increase from the estimated four million present when IRCA was enacted. Furthermore, in its quest to remain competitive, the U.S. government along with business interests must maintain an economy wholly dependent on the exploitation of undocumented and documented workers and desire more undocumented workers as the government-created pull factor of employer sanctions proves to be a powerful force in channeling more undocumented workers to the country. (, 2001)
Employer sanctions, by criminalizing undocumented workers, possibly created an environment whereby undocumented workers are favored by unscrupulous employers and can easily gain employment as exploited labor. The situation, has led to the expansion of the underground economy, making the labor law unenforceable, law abiding employers who compete with dishonest employers must also lower their standards and conditions. (, 2001) On the other hand, undocumented immigrants are uprooted from their native countries, separating families and diminishing the chances for communities to come together to change conditions in their native country. There argues that repealing employer sanctions means: workers will no longer easily be pitted against one another to compete for jobs and will have greater opportunities to organize, which will lead to a greater enforcement of not only labor but other laws as people come out of the shadows and the destruction of the foundation that regressive anti-immigrant measures rest on and that these changes will seriously weaken the incentives created by the government when it enacted employer sanctions. (, 2001)
Thus, employers will no longer have the same insatiable desire to seek out undocumented workers because they will no longer be as vulnerable. Some argue that strengthening penalties against employers and setting up a better system for verifying a workers work authorization would solve the problem, the involved position is flawed at its core as the call to reinforce employer sanctions is really just a ruse for the past years since IRCA have shown and there will be used to push undocumented workers further underground and continue to downgrade the conditions of both immigrant and citizen workers. (, 2001) The government will need to continue its consent to the hiring of undocumented workers. Employers also will be able to find other ploys to evade sanctions such as increasing their use of subcontracting. The criminalization of immigrant workers has hurt all workers and communities. Employer sanctions put labor law in the hands of employers and not workers. As a consequence, employer sanctions become a versatile tool for employers to further exploit workers. Employers can readily invoke sanctions in order to pit workers against one another based on immigration status, retaliate against undocumented workers who stand up and crush any unified organizing efforts and defend against their own law-breaking actions by arguing that undocumented workers have no rights because they are illegal – that can be an unfair indication for principles in the workforce. (, 2001)
The employer sanction is also the cornerstone of a series of regressive, anti-immigrant laws people are seeing as of the present times. It is also being used to justify new state laws that deny undocumented injured workers their owed compensation and medical benefits. In other parts of the country, the employer sanctions constitute the basis of the national trend to attack the rights of undocumented workers. The repeal of employer sanctions will lead to greater labor protections for all working people and can actually raise our standards. It will diminish employer control over the workforce and counter the trend of regressive legislation, by decriminalizing undocumented immigrants and bringing this underclass from out of the shadows, the abolition of employer sanctions will also allow for greater security in communities and lead to a safer, more just society for the citizens. (, 2001) Furthermore, by forcing an entire class of workers into the shadows of society, employer sanctions make not only labor law but all laws unenforceable. It discourages people from openly exercising their civil liberties or coming forward to report crimes and illegal activities, threatening the security as a workers’ movement built by immigrants, there believes that the nation should embrace immigrants for the diversity and values they bring, rather than fear them as threats to values or jobs. (, 2001)
Therefore, undocumented workers and their families should be provided permanent legal status through a new legalization program; employer sanctions and such type of system should be replaced with a system that targets and criminalizes business behavior that exploits workers for commercial gain; immigrant workers should have full workplace rights, including the right to organize and protections for whistleblowers; labor and business together should design mechanisms to meet legitimate needs for new workers without compromising the rights and opportunities of workers already a part and guest worker programs should be reformed but not expanded. (, 1999) The system does not work: not only does it not deter the hiring of undocumented workers; it actually protects employers who violate labor law as a matter of business practice. Instead of punishing workers, the enforcement system should be replaced with one that further criminalizes smuggling and production of fraudulent documents for commercial gain, creates stiff penalties for employers who exploit immigrant status to interfere with workers’ exercise of employment and labor rights and gives protected status to those immigrant workers who courageously come forward to protest violations of their workplace rights. (, 1999) The workplace is fairer and safer for all when the rights of every worker are equally protected and enforced by law.
Amicably, employers use the prohibition against hiring undocumented workers as a tool to excuse mistreatment of workers: the employers seek out and hire undocumented workers and the workers’ immigration status only becomes important to the employer when the worker files a claim for unpaid wages or suffers a work-related injury. Employers performing cost-benefit analysis may decide that it is cheaper to violate the law than to comply with it. The law is ineffective and easily evaded as employer sanctions was never effective as a deterrent to employers hiring of undocumented workers. (, 1999) The undocumented population totals millions more people than were present in the United States when the employer sanctions provisions were being adopted as the employers who would abuse undocumented workers have found ways to undercut the law and that an employer might gain from hiring undocumented workers should be eliminated by targeted enforcement of labor laws in favor of every workers like for example, those in low wage industries and if corrupt employers are permitted to seek out undocumented workers and then use their immigration status as a shield to escape full responsibility for on the job injuries, as the workers will have an unfair advantage over other employers. The states should not create financial incentive to ignore health and safety laws respectively. (, 1999)
REFERENCES
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment