Business and Labor Leaders Urge Visa System for Low-Skilled Work

In the statement, signed by Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the groups called for a visa system that would allow businesses to meet their demand for lower-skilled workers, while offering some protections for American workers.

“The United States will always be a nation of immigrants who have contributed greatly to the vitality, diversity and creativity of American life,” the statement said. “Yet, like the rest of America’s immigration system, the mechanisms for evaluating our labor market needs and admitting foreign workers — as well as recruiting U.S. workers — for temporary and permanent jobs are broken or nonexistent.”

The statement presented three general goals for addressing the issue of immigration by lower-skilled workers: the assurance that American workers should have “a first crack at available jobs”; a new visa program for lower-skilled workers that will adjust to reflect the changing needs to businesses as the economy shrinks and expands; and greater transparency, rooted in demographic and labor market data, in determining the market need for temporary workers.

Traditionally, labor unions have rejected the idea of a guest worker program for lower-skilled workers, which they fear could take jobs away from American workers and depress wages. Business leaders have lobbied for a guest worker program, arguing that they need low-skilled labor for jobs — in agriculture, for instance — that American workers cannot or will not do.

The principles outlined on Thursday required compromise from both sides. Labor unions, acknowledging that “there are instances — even during tough economic times — when employers are not able to fill job openings with American workers,” agreed that there may be a need for a new type of guest worker program. But in return, the unions insisted that American workers get a first shot at open jobs, and they secured an agreement that the number of incoming lower-skilled workers would not be set arbitrarily, but based on need.

“Our challenge is to create a mechanism that responds to the needs of business in a market-driven way, while also fully protecting the wages and working conditions of U.S. and immigrant workers,” the statement said.

Meeting both the business and labor interests, the groups said, will require a better flow of information, and they proposed that a federal bureau in the executive branch be created to help evaluate the labor market needs for future immigration. “We agree that a professional bureau in a federal executive agency, with political independence analogous to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, should be established to inform Congress and the public about these issues,” the statement said.

The fraught issue of an immigration overhaul is slowly winding its way through Congress, with a bipartisan group of eight senators hoping to propose legislation by the end of March. In addition to the bipartisan talks occurring on Capitol Hill and with the White House, the A.F.L.-C.I.O and the Chamber of Commerce had been engaged in a parallel set of closed-door discussions for months.

But a full-scale immigration overhaul remains a far-off prospect. This week, Representative Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, came out against a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants — a crucial component for Democrats and President Obama for any immigration plan.

“People have a pathway to citizenship right now: It’s to abide by the immigration laws, and if they have a family relationship, if they have a job skill that allows them to do that, they can obtain citizenship,” Mr. Goodlatte told NPR. “But simply someone who broke the law, came here, say, ‘I’ll give you citizenship now,’ that I don’t think is going to happen.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/us/politics/business-and-labor-leaders-urge-visa-system-for-low-skilled-work.html?partner=rss&emc=rss