Dear Representative:
America’s unions urge you to join Representative Castro as a co-sponsor of the Seasonal Worker Solidarity Act, which would fundamentally reform the H-2B visa program to ensure fair pay, safe working conditions, and just treatment of all workers in seasonal industries.
The pandemic has exposed the systemic undervaluing of work now understood to be essential, and the need for new approaches that reject entrenched patterns of discrimination and promote opportunity and rights for all. After decades of experience with the abusive model of guestworker programs that degrade labor standards and constrain the rights of migrant and U.S. workers alike, change is long overdue.
The Seasonal Worker Solidarity Act advances a new model of work visa that will respond to real labor market needs, elevate labor standards, end captive employment, respect family unity, and afford immigrant workers a path to citizenship. The bill also includes the vitally important provisions of the Power Act, which extend concrete protections to immigrants and guestworkers who take action to enforce our labor laws.
The need for more robust worker protections in the H-2B program is clear, and grows more urgent as the Administration begins to promote H-2B recruitment out of Haiti and Central American countries that have been destabilized by disasters and political unrest. Now is the time to ensure that the program promotes good jobs, worker empowerment, employer accountability, fair recruitment, and racial and gender equity.
Rather than expanding a failed model, we call on Congress and the Administration to take immediate steps to end the well-documented patterns of abuse that pervade the H-2B program. Our unions look forward to working with you to pass the Seasonal Worker Solidarity Act and finally enact a broad path to citizenship for all those whose labor helps our country to prosper. To co-sponsor the bill, please reach out to [email protected] in Representative Castro’s office today.
Sincerely,
William Samuel
Director, Government Affairs