THE HILL (Washington, D.C.)

April 18, 2009

Labor agreement could backfire on immigration reform

Organized labor’s new unified front in support of comprehensive immigration reform could disrupt what’s left of the delicate bipartisan balance on one of the most politically charged issues in Congress.

Earlier this week, labor celebrated the coming together behind a single set of immigration reform principles after years of being at odds with itself over various parts of a planned immigration overhaul.

But that unity could have the unintended consequence of driving a wedge between Democrats and those few Republicans whose support will be critical to getting a major immigration reform bill through the Senate – and could even prevent such a bill from having bipartisan support in the House.

“The current plan being developed by the administration and organized labor calls for immigration reform that does not adequately address either securing the border or a legal temporary worker program and is a plan I cannot support,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the lead Republican sponsor of the immigration bill that died in the Senate after a conservative uprising against it in 2007.

McCain’s support – and the support of other Senate Republicans – will be necessary to advance a comprehensive bill even to the point it got to two years ago. 

The two major labor groups – the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation, which includes the Service Employees International Union – have always agreed on the most contentious immigration issues, which is creating a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented workers already in the country illegally.

But before the Senate agreement fizzled the two groups split over immigration when the AFL-CIO refused to support a guest worker program backed by President Bush and that a number of Republicans working toward a full immigration overhaul said was critical to earn their support as well.

The business community, including the Chamber of Commerce, has long supported the guest worker program.

With the new labor framework, though, the guest worker program would be scrapped in favor of a national commission to determine the number of permanent and temporary workers allowed across the border every year, which the labor groups said would be “based on labor market shortages that are based on actual and real needs.”

The SEIU and its affiliated unions, which had in the past backed the guest worker program, said they had not abandoned their principles.

“How we get to numbers and all of that and who makes those decisions is what the commission will do,” Eliseo Medina, the SEIU’s international executive vice president, said last week in a conference call with reporters. “How [workers] get here is what’s different, not what rights they have when they come here. I don’t think it’s inconsistent. I think it’s what we been speaking about the whole time.”

AFL-CIO has opposed the current guest worker program on the grounds that some employers use it to exploit foreign employees at the expense of U.S. workers they would otherwise have to provide better pay and conditions to.

The other tenants of the labor agreement include a pathway to citizenship provision, a worker verification system and proposal for “rational, operational control of the border.”

And labor made it clear that they want Congress to bend to their new plan.

“We will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary to really encourage our legislators and to encourage the people of the United States to really support this position,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers.

“The ball’s going to be in Congress’ court to say why this agreement won’t work,” added Ana Avendano, the ALF-CIO’s director of the group’s immigrant worker program.

But the immediate response in Congress has been mixed at best.

“We need to act on the pressing issue of border security now, and then seek comprehensive immigration legislation that includes a temporary worker program,” McCain continued. “Any legislation that does not address these two key components is not real reform.

The Republican-friendly Chamber of Commerce has also criticized the labor agreement, citing the planned elimination of the guest worker program

Democrats, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the lead sponsor of the House version of the 2007 McCain and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) comprehensive reform bill, applauded the agreement, but did not mention any of the potential new rifts it has caused.

"I congratulate AFL-CIO and Change to Win on coming together to state their shared support for comprehensive immigration reform,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “Their commitment will help demonstrate that comprehensive reform is the only way to bring workers out of the shadows, elevate wages and ensure safety for all of the hardworking men and women of the U.S. labor force."

Gutierrez has said his first task since getting the green light from Democratic leaders and the White House to get to work on a bill this year is to seek out those Republicans who are again sympathetic toward the cause of eventual citizenship for those undocumented workers already here.

But Congressional aides close to those discussions have said that the labor agreement could complicate those efforts.

“There will be some back and forth, to say the least, on the commission idea,” a Democratic aide close to the immigration negotiations said.

On Thursday White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs noted that an immigration reform that President Obama is supporting won’t be possible without a “healthy bipartisan majority.”

"In order to get immigration reform through Congress and to the president's desk it's going to take a healthy bipartisan majority," Gibbs said. "It's going to take votes from both sides of the aisle, and I don't anticipate it'll happen until there is some agreement to that."