guestworker

[Re-posted from www.organizingupgrade.com]

An Interview with Saket Soni, Executive Director, National Guestworkers Alliance

As capital continues to squeeze its way around the globe in search of the absolute cheapest labor markets and raw goods, workers are forced to respond not simply to a local boss but a multinational supply chain.  How do you create a workers’ movement that can eventually overcome the new forms of exploitation under global capitalism?  This interview seeks to describe one potential path.

Why did you and others create the National Guestworker Alliance?  What are you hoping to address?

The National Guestworker Alliance was launched in May 2011 by guestworkers and organizers after five years of organizing guestworkers in the Gulf coast and across the country.  The idea was that the National Guestworker Alliance would be a national vehicle for the over one million guestworkers in this country to fuel a social movement for dignified work in the United States.

Every year, thousands of workers come to the United States via the H-2B guestworker visa program. Under this program, a workers' visa is tied to his or her employer, giving their bosses a great deal of control over their lives. All too often, workers in the US on the H-2B visa find themselves in unfair, unsafe, or even illegal work situations, but because their immigration status is tied to their employer, it is very difficult to organize for better working conditions. You may remember the story of Hilario Jimenez, a guestworker who escaped company housing to expose his employers for using taxpayer money to exploit migrant workers while excluding local workers from jobs.

Federal Stimulus Funds & Tennessee Tax Dollars Pay for Human Trafficking, Forced Labor: Call on the Obama Administration to hold employer accountable

Late in the night on August 10, Mexican guestworker Hilario Jimenez escaped from company housing to expose his employers. Hilario and other guestworkers were recruited from Mexico and brought to the U.S. on H-2B visas by Vanderbilt Landscaping LLC.

This morning Hilario blew the whistle on a Tennessee scandal: Vanderbilt Landscaping, LLC is receiving millions in federal stimulus money and state contracts put together. And the company is importing guestworkers - cheap, captive labor - into public jobs even as local communities are suffering from record unemployment rates.

Now we ask you to stand with Hilario Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice and members of the Alliance of Guestworkers of Dignity to fight human trafficking, forced labor, and a company that gets millions in state and stimulus money.

TELL THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO INVESTIGATE VANDERBILT.  Call 202 353 1555 and tell Attorney General Eric Holder, "The Department of Justice should investigate and prosecute the employers for criminal conduct including but not limited to labor trafficking, forced labor, unlawful conduct with respect to documents, and other crimes in coordination with the F.B.I."