Will foreign temporary workers depress wages?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - In their debates so far, the Democratic presidential candidates haven’t yet grappled with a question that affects a traditional Democratic constituency:  low-income workers.

The question: Do immigrants and foreign guest workers lower the wages of Americans at the bottom end of the income scale?

The immigration bill which the Senate is debating this week is a series of compromises among a bipartisan group of senators.

Democrats who support the bill know that, in order for it to hold together, they’ll have to accept some form of guest worker plan.

But Tuesday on the Senate floor one Democrat, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and one independent who lines up with Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, passionately made the case that a new guest worker program would lower Americans’ wages.

Attempt to kill guest worker proposal
Dorgan tried to kill the guest worker provision in the bill that would, at first, allow 400,000 temporary workers per year to enter the United States, with annual adjustments in the number based on labor market demand.

Instead of framing immigration as an ethnic issue or one of national security, Dorgan and Sanders re-framed it as a matter of economic class and equity.

Dorgan said he was speaking on behalf of low-wage American workers, "the people you don't see very often, they are the people who pass the coffee to you across the counter or help out at the gas station and do those kinds of jobs... They are going to have to shower after work because they work hard and they sweat and they do not get paid very much."

Citing one industry, Dorgan said 86 percent of the people who work in food preparation are Americans or legal permanent residents.

“If you want to bring in people at the bottom of the economic ladder, low-wage workers, you know what that does to the other 86 percent…. It puts downward pressure on income. We don't have to debate about that. That debate is over,” he told senators.

Sanders said, “At a time when millions of Americans are working longer hours for low wages and have seen real cuts in their wages and benefits, this legislation would… bring millions of low-wage workers from other countries into the United States. If wages are already this low in Vermont and throughout the country, what happens when more and more people are forced to compete for these jobs?”

Sanders denounced U.S. corporations which he said were “pushing legislation which displaces American workers and lowers wages in this country by bringing low-wage workers from abroad into America.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D- Calif., also spoke in support of Dorgan's effort.

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