Bush's immigrant scam

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S flimsy analysis of President Bush's proposed temporary guest worker program last week was so void of historical context that it was dangerously misleading. In press reports and on TV news shows, we searched for a single reference to the Bracero Program, the mother of all ill-conceived guest worker programs – and found nothing.

So here's a brief history lesson

Instituted in 1942 and operational through 1964, the Bracero Program was a guest worker program set up to alleviate labor shortages in the U.S. agricultural and railroad industries. As with Bush's current proposal, the program allowed immigrants – mostly Mexicans – to enter the United States for a limited period of time to work.

The braceros relied on their employers for their visas – meaning they risked deportation if they got on their bosses' bad side. In no time the program became synonymous with exploitation: mandatory unpaid overtime, rock-bottom wages, substandard food and housing, deplorable work conditions, lack of basic sanitation. Lee G. Williams, the Department of Labor's last administrator of the program, referred to the result as "nothing short of legalized slavery."

Also like Bush's proposal, the Bracero Program required that a certain percentage of the braceros' wages be withheld and paid to the workers when they returned to their native countries. But the vast majority of braceros who returned home never received the money owed them (see "Pay Dirt," 7/17/02).

Critics have equated guest worker programs to a kind of reverse free-trade agreement: industries that can't take their operations to third-world countries, where they could otherwise profit from substandard environmental regulations and cut-rate wages, simply import a cheap, disposable labor pool with no voting power.

And there is no indication Bush's proposal includes any realistic potential for guest workers to gain permanent legal status.

Bush's guest worker proposal is more than an election-year ploy to attract Latino votes: it's a mean-spirited attempt to undermine immigrant labor organizing and to thwart continuing calls for an amnesty program that would allow undocumented laborers already here to attain legal standing. Activists need to keep reminding the media: this is not a fair amnesty plan – and the Bay Area congressional delegation should oppose it resoundingly.