The AFL-CIO praised President Obama’s executive order on immigration, saying the president was acting within his authority to better the nation’s “moral and economic interests.”
At the same time, the labor federation slammed the action for its changes to the high-tech immigration program, saying that it would result in the “continued suppression of wages in the tech sector.”
“By extending relief and work authorization to an estimated 4 million people, the Obama administration will help prevent unscrupulous employers from using unprotected workers to drive down wages and conditions for all workers in our country. Although this fix will be temporary, it will allow millions of people to live and work without fear, and afford them the status to assert their rights on the job,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Once generally opposed to immigration, labor groups have more recently had considerable success organizing industries that heavily rely on foreign workers. The AFL-CIO has pushed for comprehensive immigration reform but opposed many of the proposals pushed by business groups. It took the AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce several months in 2013 just to hammer out a vague set of common principles they wanted Congress to pursue.
Ultimately, Obama’s action did not include many of the things that business wanted, such as “recapturing” unused green cards from previous years and allowing new immigrants to have them, according to sources briefed on the proposal. The administration did change rules allowing spouses of high-tech visas holders to work in the U.S., a right they previously didn’t have. Many of their spouses also hold high-tech degrees, so the change vastly expands the pool of available immigrant workers.
Trumka was less supportive of this change, arguing that there was no shortage of workers in that industry. He said his organization would continue to lobby for stricter rules limiting the number of allowed visas to “real labor market need” and to ensure that the workers that are allowed in are “afforded full rights and protections.”
