WG: Exploiting alien labor

> ----------
> Von:  center@cis.org[SMTP:center@cis.org]
> Gesendet:     Montag, 17. Januar 2000 20:07
> An:   CISNEWS@cis.org
> Betreff:      Exploiting alien labor
> 
> 
> [For CISNEWS subscribers: Two items, the first on employers who threaten
> illegals to prevent unionization, the second on Indian H-1Bs working at
> "bodyshops" in Silicon Valley. -- Mark Krikorian]
> 
> 
> Unionizing Is Catch-22 for Illegal Immigrants 
> +Jobs: Undocumented status makes them vulnerable to workplace retaliation.
> 
> Federal agencies seek to sidestep labor conflicts, but activists push for
> change in laws.
> By Nancy Cleeland
> Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2000
> 
> Employers are increasingly fighting union campaigns by firing or
> threatening undocumented workers, thwarting labor organizers and defying
> the intent--if not the letter--of immigration law.
> 
> Complaints of retaliatory firings have climbed as unions aggressively
> recruit immigrants, considered crucial to rebuilding the U.S. labor
> movement, and as the fast-growing economy pulls in more unauthorized
> workers.
> 
> While difficult to measure, the apparent backlash is clear enough to
> prompt
> action from a number of federal agencies, including the Equal Employment
> Opportunity Commission and the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
> which is seeking to reassure unions that it will back away from labor
> conflicts when possible.
> 
> Just last week, the EEOC announced a $72,000 settlement with a Minneapolis
> Holiday Inn Express, where nine undocumented workers were fired and
> arrested after a successful unionization drive.
> 
> It was the first settlement under a new policy announced by the commission
> in October extending protection to all workers, even those in the United
> States illegally. In reality, however, undocumented immigrants take
> greater
> risks because the government cannot force an employer to reinstate someone
> who is here illegally, even if fired unjustly.
> 
> "The fear is pervasive," said Pamela Thomason, regional attorney for the
> EEOC in Los Angeles, "and rational."
> 
> Labor is so concerned that the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization
> representing 13 million workers, recently convened a task force on
> immigration laws that is expected to call for major reform as early as
> next
> month.
> 
> Central to the controversy is a 1986 federal law that criminalized the
> hiring of undocumented workers. The law was backed by labor, which at the
> time viewed illegal immigrants as potential strikebreakers and argued that
> employers should be punished for hiring them instead of U.S. citizens and
> other legal residents.
> 
> Since then, the proliferation of fake documents, along with weak
> enforcement and the complicity of some employers, has undercut the goal of
> reducing illegal immigration.
> 
> In fact, according to the INS, the illegal immigrant population has grown
> by about 275,000 a year since the law was enacted, and now stands at about
> 6 million.
> 
> Nearly half of the undocumented workers are believed to live in
> California,
> and are concentrated in certain low-wage sectors, including farm labor,
> janitorial services, hotel and restaurant work, and garment and other
> low-skilled assembly jobs. In some sectors, they may account for half the
> work force, researchers said.
> 
> Labor organizers said fear of firing or deportation is one reason wages
> have stagnated and union organizing drives have stalled in many of those
> sectors.
> 
> "When you have a group of workers who are undocumented and easily
> frightened, it is almost impossible to win," said Joel Ochoa, an organizer
> with the International Assn. of Machinists, which earlier this month lost
> a
> hard-fought campaign to organize an immigrant work force at a wheel
> assembly plant in San Bernardino.
> 
> Being Fired After Voting for a Union
> 
> In the shadow world of illegal immigrants, stories of retaliatory firings
> spread quickly, and carry far more weight than the carefully worded
> assurances of federal agencies.
> 
> Take the case of Rodrigo Romero, a Vernon warehouse worker who was fired
> in
> October, one day after he voted to be represented by the International
> Brotherhood of Teamsters.
> 
> Romero, 39, a native of Belize, was employed for seven years by La
> Curacao,
> a Los Angeles department store catering to recent immigrants. For the past
> four years, he ran the warehouse shipping department, earning $8.50 an
> hour.
> 
> He said supervisors had long known of his undocumented status. A file of
> correspondence held by Romero shows that La Curacao referred him to an
> immigration lawyer two years ago and lent him $1,000 for a longshot
> attempt
> to gain legal residency.
> 
> But during the union organizing campaign, Romero said, he was frequently
> reminded of his tenuous status and urged to vote against the Teamsters. He
> said he openly supported the union because many warehouse workers had not
> received raises in years and some lacked proper safety equipment.
> 
> The Teamsters won the secret ballot election. The next day, Romero was
> told
> he had been terminated. The reason: He could not produce valid immigration
> papers. La Curacao did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
> 
> Romero took his case to the National Labor Relations Board, which is
> investigating his and seven other terminations at La Curacao. Even if he
> prevails, however, the typical NLRB remedy of reinstatement is not
> available to him. The best he can hope for is a limited amount of back
> pay.
> 
> "It's a difficult situation, and here in Los Angeles, it comes up with
> some
> frequency," said NLRB spokesman James Small. "We try to balance the rights
> of employees with the need to acknowledge immigration laws. It isn't easy.
> There's been a lot of agonizing over this issue."
> 
> Concern is not limited to California. As demographics shift in the
> nation's
> blue-collar work force, the same tricky terrain is being navigated in
> union
> drives as distant as Minnesota, where an estimated 30,000 undocumented
> workers fill low-wage jobs.
> 
> Immigration status "has come up in every single organizing campaign we've
> had in the last three years," said Jaye Rykunyk, secretary-treasurer of
> the
> Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 17, in
> Minneapolis.
> 
> "In a number of our hotels, we have lost entire departments. And it really
> has a chilling effect on an organizing drive. People understand very
> clearly [that] if you are involved in trying to bring in a union, you put
> your job in jeopardy."
> 
> In a recent case that Rykunyk regarded as particularly egregious,
> pro-union
> housekeeping workers at a Minneapolis Holiday Inn Express were summoned to
> an office meeting and greeted by an INS agent. The agent, who had been
> called by an assistant hotel manager, determined that nine were illegal
> immigrants and arrested them.
> 
> Rykunyk bailed them out, then helped shepherd the workers through a
> federal
> complaint process that ended with the $72,000 settlement announced last
> week. This week, the workers asked for amnesty, but they are almost
> certain
> to be deported to Mexico.
> 
> The incident infuriated the union and embarrassed the INS, which had been
> touting a new enforcement strategy that targets bad employers--those who
> recruit or even smuggle illegal workers--and punishes them with hefty
> fines.
> 
> Gone are the days of sensational, tip-generated workplace raids, which
> have
> not significantly deterred illegal immigration and have the potential for
> dragging the INS into labor disputes. At least, one INS official said,
> that
> is the goal.
> 
> "We have operating instructions that very clearly say when a lead comes
> in,
> the local INS office needs to search out whether there is a potential to
> be
> misused, and that's what did not happen in Minneapolis," said Robert Bach,
> executive associate commissioner for policy and planning at the INS.
> 
> Bach said he is continuing to talk informally with the AFL-CIO to calm the
> waters. "There's a real credibility issue here," he conceded. "The INS has
> to prove that it is really committed to the new enforcement policy and can
> pull it off on the ground level."
> 
> As an indication of the agency's new direction, Bach pointed to a
> $1.9-million settlement with Filiberto's, a Phoenix restaurant chain that
> admitted recruiting undocumented workers.
> 
> It was a record fine, and an exception to the rule. In the last five
> years,
> according to a Times analysis of INS data, about 4,000 employers were
> fined
> for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Nearly all of those fines were
> substantially reduced or forgiven altogether. "The fact is that very
> little
> has been done to employers under this law," said Lucas Guttentag, who
> directs the American Civil Liberties Union's immigration project. "The
> focus has been overwhelmingly on workers. Instead of helping the work
> force, it's only increased the level of exploitation."
> 
> Active involvement by the INS in retaliatory firings is actually quite
> rare, labor activists said. Instead, many employers simply "review" an
> employee's records and find them to be inadequate. The tactic is
> illegal--immigration documents can be inspected only at the time of
> hiring--but often effective.
> 
> "There are many stories of employers calling people in before a union vote
> to check their papers, even in cases where they helped them get over the
> border," said Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees
> International
> Union, Local 1877, which represents many immigrant janitors in Los
> Angeles.
> "As long as everything's quiet, these issues don't get raised. But
> [firings
> are] always available. That's the problem with the law. It's become
> another
> weapon for the employer."
> 
> Law Allegedly Used to Punish Workers
> 
> Garcia is among a group of labor activists pushing the AFL-CIO to
> recommend
> a repeal of the 1986 "employer sanctions" law on the grounds that it has
> been used to punish workers rather than employers. Instead, he said, the
> government should legalize undocumented workers and spend more to enforce
> wage and safety laws.
> 
> Not surprisingly, there is little consensus on the matter, within or
> outside labor.
> 
> "What really would serve labor's interest is an effective verification
> system that would prevent employers from [hiring undocumented workers and]
> holding the prospect of termination over employees' heads," said Mark
> Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a
> Washington-based group that favors tighter immigration controls.
> "Otherwise
> what you have is an additional cudgel crooked employers have against their
> crooked employees."
> 
> For Rodrigo Romero, the fired warehouse worker, no proposal offers much
> hope. After 10 years of living in Los Angeles, he can't imagine returning
> to Belize. And yet three months after losing his job at La Curacao, he has
> not found a replacement.
> 
> "To tell the truth, I feel very disillusioned," said Romero, who now does
> odd jobs in construction. "When I signed the union card, I told them a lot
> of people are going to be fired if we win. I just didn't know I would be
> the first one."
> 
> 
> ********
> ********
> 
> High tech's imported brainpower
> Indians recruited by temp firms create flourishing subculture
> By Sarah Lubman 
> San Jose Mercury News, January 16, 2000
> 
> Sudhir Wath shares a bare, two-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale with three
> roommates. They sleep on the floor in cheap sleeping bags, and their
> living
> room decor consists of an ironing board, a standing lamp and a television
> atop a cardboard box.
> 
> But Wath and his buddies, all Indians in their mid-20s, aren't
> complaining.
> Far from it. They're contract high-tech workers brought over by temp
> recruiting firms, dubbed ``bodyshoppers,'' and they're making 10 times
> their annual salaries back in Bangalore -- although, as they quickly
> discover, a rupee in India goes a lot further than a dollar in the United
> States.
> 
> Almost from the moment of his arrival, Wath became part of a thriving
> Silicon Valley subculture. Beneath the clamor over the issue of H-1B visas
> for skilled foreign workers, young Indian engineers are carving out a
> distinct lifestyle that's fueled by the region's insatiable demand for
> knowledge workers. In a way, they're a revved-up version of ``Kelly
> Girls''
> who once filled American offices -- but with engineering degrees and the
> ability to program in Java. Many eventually wind up as employees at the
> companies that once contracted for their time.
> 
> ``Obviously, I want to make money,'' says Wath, 25, who arrived in late
> November and landed on a Cisco Systems Inc. project 10 days later.
> ``That's
> the main object. But I also want to learn things, how they're so advanced
> here.''
> 
> Wath's H-1B journey began in India, where U.S.- and India-based bodyshops
> advertise in local newspapers, drawing as many as 2,000 resumes in five
> days. In Bangalore, India's high-tech hub, many bodyshops are located in
> small offices on side streets off exhaust-choked Mahatma Gandhi Road,
> universally referred to as MG Road.
> 
> Wath chose Santa Clara-based TekEdge Corp., which doesn't like the term
> bodyshop, based on friends' recommendations. In 1999, TekEdge sponsored
> 600
> people for H-1B visas, 375 of whom were Indian. This year, the firm
> predicts it will sponsor 1,000 recruits, with about 475 from India and the
> rest from the U.S., Canada and Britain. (Girish Gaitonde, TekEdge's
> India-born president and chief executive officer, describes TekEdge as ``a
> company which delivers e-business solutions using talent from all over the
> world.'')
> 
> Here's how the H-1B pattern generally plays out: The recruiting firm pays
> its workers, who tend to be software programmers with a few years of
> experience, an annual salary and benefits. They're full-time employees of
> the bodyshop, hired out to clients like Cisco on demand. The bodyshop
> charges corporate clients an hourly rate, either for individual workers or
> teams, to shepherd technology projects that range from software databases
> to systems integration to Web applications. When the project is over --
> anywhere from several months to several years -- the ``bodies'' return to
> the bodyshop, which places them with the next client.
> 
> The industry varies widely. High-end firms like TekEdge -- which is viewed
> by other Indians as a bodyshop despite Gaitonde's rejection of the term --
> have lower turnover and better benefits. Low-end firms require a bond from
> recruits to keep them from jumping ship right away, and sometimes keep
> them
> on a low daily ``bench allowance'' until they are placed.
> 
> Most bodyshops, including TekEdge, require reimbursement for relocation
> costs if people leave within a year (a common practice nationwide,
> including at the Mercury News). Many firms collect headhunting fees from
> corporate clients that hire recruits as employees. At Ipex, a wholly-owned
> subsidiary of San Francisco-based Hall Kinion & Associates Inc., the fee
> is
> 25 to 30 percent of recruits' salaries.
> 
> Fast learning curve
> 
> Agency gives coaching on life's necessities
> 
> Wath's introduction to his new life began with a Nov. 22 orientation a few
> days after stepping off a plane. He and two other newly arrived Indian
> programmers -- ``consultants,'' in industry parlance -- sit behind a table
> at the firm's headquarters. All three wear neatly pressed shirts. They're
> handed thick stacks of benefits documents and greeted by Murali Seshadri,
> a
> senior human resources manager. He gives them a quick run-down: TekEdge
> will help them get Social Security numbers, open bank accounts, and, most
> crucial, obtain driver's licenses.
> 
> ``Having a four-wheeler is an absolute must,'' Seshadri tells the trio. He
> tells them they'll be coached on how to communicate, receive training to
> keep their skills up to date, and that they must meet deadlines at all
> times. Seshadri ends on a serious note that may as well be the coda of
> Silicon Valley: ``There is no learning time here. The learning curve has
> to
> be small and quick.''
> 
> By Dec. 1, Wath is working on a software development project at Cisco. Two
> weeks later, he's found an apartment through a friend. Although the four
> men split the $1,600 monthly rent, Wath is still paying almost triple his
> rent in Bangalore, where he worked for the National Stock Exchange of
> India.
> 
> Wath's starting salary at TekEdge is $50,000, and will bump up to about
> $65,000 in six months if he performs well. That's considerably less than
> what Gaitonde says is the median starting salary at TekEdge: $72,000. Ipex
> says the median salaries for starting consultants are ``in the $60(k)- to
> $70k range.'' Jim Schneider, owner of San Francisco-based Professional
> Consulting Network, a tech staffing firm, says he would expect an Indian
> programmer with Wath's experience to start at about $60,000 to $65,000.
> 
> TekEdge and Ipex say their employees' salaries range from about $50,000 to
> $120,000, but the companies have different approaches: TekEdge tries to
> keep people happy so they won't leave; Ipex, which has a higher attrition
> rate, sees placing recruits with U.S. firms as part of its job.
> 
> How much H-1B visa-holders make is a contentious point that is at the
> heart
> of critics' claims that companies are discriminating against older U.S.
> workers by hiring cheap labor from abroad.
> 
> The H-1B program has been controversial since its enactment in 1990.
> Technology companies say they need skilled foreign labor to stay
> competitive and fill jobs for which there aren't enough American workers,
> such as programmers, engineers and chip designers. Groups representing
> technical workers, along with the Labor Department, argue that the program
> has been used as a crutch to sidestep training domestic workers.
> 
> Under pressure from the tech industry, the annual quota on skilled foreign
> workers rose to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000, up from 65,000. It's scheduled
> to
> fall to 107,500 in 2001 and 65,000 in 2002.
> 
> Another issue is the quality of bodyshop labor. One 26-year-old founder of
> a Bangalore software start-up echoes a common perception in India when he
> says that bodyshoppers don't get the best talent.
> 
> ``Earlier there were lots more people with good experience locally. They
> have to a good degree moved overseas,'' says the entrepreneur, who doesn't
> want to be named. ``Now people tend to leave for overseas jobs faster than
> they did earlier and have not attained the level of maturity that a client
> would require of the consultant. . . . Net effect, a percentage of the
> consultants are not as equipped to handle their tasks as they should be.''
> 
> TekEdge's Gaitonde denies that some recruits are underqualified, but
> acknowledges that the best Indian minds from the subcontinent's
> prestigious
> Indian Institute of Technology campuses get snapped up by American
> graduate
> schools and big Indian firms such as Infosys Technologies Ltd. Lalit
> Kapoor, Ipex's president, notes that big firms such as Microsoft Corp.
> also
> do their own recruiting in India. What's left are graduates from
> less-competitive schools who have worked in high-tech jobs, but not
> necessarily for high-tech firms.
> 
> ``We choose as stringently as an American would choose an Indian,''
> Gaitonde says. ``We take even more care because we are spending a lot of
> money to relocate people, so we want to make sure we're hiring the best
> and
> the brightest.'' But he adds that in general, demand for tech talent is so
> overheated in the U.S. that people ``do have to compromise for quality,
> even in start-ups here. I'm seeing that in marketing people. You always
> get
> one notch lower than you expect.''
> 
> High-tech comrades
> 
> Adjusting to America, recruits stick together
> 
> For now, TekEdge doesn't need to worry about Wath bolting to a start-up.
> He
> isn't planning to leave the firm that brought him here, nor does he want
> to
> stay in the country beyond three or four years -- although those plans
> often change as H-1B workers acclimate to the West. For now, the lure of a
> job at an established U.S. firm or a start-up doesn't appeal to Wath, an
> outgoing young man with a sunny face.
> 
> ``I don't want to join any U.S. company, because they can lay me off at
> any
> time,'' he says, sitting on the floor of his apartment on a recent
> Saturday
> afternoon. In a few years, he wants to get married and bring his wife back
> to join him, but there's a family caveat: ``My parents strictly told me,
> don't bring any American girl. Even if you bring them, don't come to us.''
> 
> The phone rings. It's an Indian colleague across the street. He's bored
> and
> wants company. Wath walks across the street into the complex, down a
> narrow
> hallway and into an apartment that's a virtual clone of his own: beige
> wall-to-wall carpeting, no furniture, redolent of Indian cooking.
> 
> While the bodyshops encourage their new hires to mix with Americans --
> ``The real beauty of America is the mixed culture,'' as Gaitonde puts it
> --
> they tend to stick together during their first year. They cook communally,
> making rice and native dishes in their narrow kitchens. On weekends, Wath
> and his fellow programmers pile into a car and drive to places like Santa
> Cruz, catch Indian movies at Fremont's Naz 8 theater, or rent Indian
> videos
> from one of the many Indian-run rental shops that have sprouted on the
> Peninsula.
> 
> ``In India, we used to rent American movies,'' Wath says, amused. Neither
> he nor his roommates plan to buy any furniture. Soon one of his roommates
> will bring his wife over from India and move out, and another newly
> arrived
> bachelor will move in.
> 
>