COMMENTARY
ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (Editorial): Protect wages of all workers
GOP should seek immigration solutions rather
than trolling for votes on the road
August 20, 2006
When House Republican leaders decided to take their immigrant-bashing road show to the heartland this summer, they walked away from any serious effort at meaningful reform of the nation's broken immigration laws until after the November election.
The trumped-up "field hearings" by two House committees in Dalton and Gainesville last week more than confirmed that. Not only did they provide a taxpayer-subsidized forum to allow House Republicans to complain about all the things they don't like about the Senate-passed immigration bill, but they also became an election year campaign rally for the state GOP. The invited-speaker list included the party's candidates for lieutenant governor and agriculture commissioner, neither of whom would have any direct role in implementing whatever Congress decides.
At the Gainesville hearing, U.S. Reps. Charlie Norwood, Tom Price and Nathan Deal — all Georgia Republicans — took a turn declaring that the Senate bill would guarantee high wages to illegal immigrants in the private sector while consigning American laborers in the same jobs to lower pay. That's simply false, but it sounded good and helped whip up the immigrants-as-thieves theme that dominated their hearings.
The Davis-Bacon Act, a federal law dating to the Roosevelt era, requires contractors doing business with the federal government to pay workers what the Labor Department determines to be the prevailing wage for laborers in the region. Republicans have historically hated the law because it can lead to higher wages for all laborers, not just those working for companies with federal contracts. However, they have never been able to muster the votes to repeal it.
The Senate immigration bill does contain Davis-Bacon provisions, but they were included not to protect illegal immigrants, but to protect American workers from being cheated by employers. It would have no impact whatsoever on the wages of illegal immigrants, which are not protected by any wage or hour statutes. Nor is the Senate suggesting they should be.
The wage provisions in the Senate bill would apply only to legal immigrants who enter this country under a temporary worker program. Before a company could use temporary workers for a job, it would have to certify that a labor shortage exists and that it will pay the Labor Department's prevailing wage for all workers, not just those on a temporary payroll.
The clear goal is to ensure that temporary workers are not brought into the country to work at wages lower than American workers would otherwise receive.
"If this Congress is indeed interested in protecting American jobs, then it should extend the protection of a prevailing wage under the Davis-Bacon Act," testified Jeffrey B. Wenger, a University of Georgia economist and public policy professor who provided a rare moment of thoughtfulness at the Gainesville hearing. Poultry, textile and other large industries routinely exploit an unregulated market of temporary workers — legal and illegal alike — paying them lower wages as well as denying them health and Social Security benefits, Wenger said.
Removing that language, as House Republicans apparently want to do, would undercut the wages of the American workers that they so piously claim to want to protect.
Numerous public opinion polls have shown that Americans understand and support efforts to expand temporary worker status to many immigrants now in the country illegally. Americans also want to create a pathway to permanent citizenship for those who have been here the longest and are willing to pay fines and back taxes, learn English and pass health and criminal background screenings.
The Senate bill, supported by President Bush, would allow for both.
Republicans in the House frame the debate as a choice between border security and amnesty. It isn't. Finding a way to legalize many of those already here offers the opportunity to enhance border security, not jeopardize it.
Despite spending three times what was spent 10 years ago on border security and increasing the size of the Border Patrol four-fold — with more agents being trained every day — immigrants relentlessly assault the border because they know they can get work in the United States. Instead of turning the 2,100-mile border into a militarized zone and stationing 36,000 troops there, as Norwood continues to insist is necessary, Congress should seek more effective ways to relieve the pressure.
One way is to crack down on employers who hire illegal workers, a step that federal officials have only recently embraced after ignoring workplace enforcement for the last 15 years.
Another is to acknowledge that we simply do not have enough native-born workers or authorized foreign workers in low-skilled jobs to keep the American economy growing. Good estimates put that shortage at 400,000 to 500,000 workers a year, which is why the border is being overrun.
Under the Senate bill, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department would be charged with determining how many foreign workers to let into the country legally. Once the number is established, ICE would process the workers, set a time limit on their temporary status and keep track of them while here, allowing the Border Patrol to refocus its attention to drug smugglers and potential terrorists instead of chasing potential chicken workers and landscapers.
That's a workable system, but House Republicans are apparently more interested in scoring political points than in reaching a solution.
—Mike King, for the editorial board (mking@ajc.com)
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