Free Republic

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Day laborers stood in the shade of a palm tree hoping for work and dreaming of a life out of the shadows on Friday, a day after U.S. Senate leaders struck a deal on immigration reform that would allow millions of illegal immigrants a shot at becoming legal. The agreement would create a temporary worker program, set up a merit-based system for future immigrants and give legal status to some 12 million undocumented immigrants, if it survives what is expected to be a highly charged debate in Congress in coming weeks. It allowed the day laborers in...

Lo and behold, it's still true that if negotiators with divergent views but a common goal work hard enough and long enough, they can produce a workable compromise - even on one of the nation's most contentious issues. Yesterday's breakthrough agreement on immigration reform between President Bush and a bipartisan group of senators also demonstrated the wisdom of including those with relatively extreme views along with more moderate voices. Which is not to say the compromise proposal will have an easy trip through Congress, or that it can't be improved along the way. But all the negotiators - including two...

Nine employees of a party supplies rental company were arrested Thursday on immigration violations as part of a crackdown on illegal hiring at military bases and other high-security workplaces. The five women and four men were arrested at Classic Party Rentals Inc.'s San Diego offices and were to be returned to Mexico, their home country, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company performs work at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, where immigration authorities recently began reviewing contractors' employee records, Mack said. An audit of Classic Party Rentals found 30 of 105...

Marcus Kabel, BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart's normally low-profile security efforts were thrust into the limelight Wednesday when a fired technician alleged he had been part of a large surveillance operation that spied on company workers, critics, vendors and consultants. The company defended its security practices. The world's largest retailer declined to comment on specific allegations made by 19-year veteran Bruce Gabbard to the Wall Street Journal in a report published Wednesday. Wal-Mart reiterated that it had fired Gabbard, 44, and his supervisor last month for violating company policy by recording phone calls and intercepting pager messages.

Employers in some unlikely places say they're having trouble filling jobs. Factory managers in Ho Chi Minh City report many of their $62-a-month workers went home for the Tet holiday in February and never came back. In Bulgaria, computer experts are in such demand they can't be bothered to answer the want ads of a Los Angeles movie studio. And in Peoria, Caterpillar Inc. (CAT ) is struggling to train enough service technicians. The problem in each case: not enough people who are both able and willing to do the work for the posted pay. "We've got a global problem...and...

Low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more in services than they pay in taxes. Possibly the rush of illegal workers across the Mexican border has eased a little. That would please most Americans, since polls find that 3 out of 4 want immigration levels into the United States reduced. If the flow has decreased, it would indicate some effect from strengthened patrols and a fence rising along the 2,000-mile border, a modest step-up in prosecutions and convictions of immigration-related crimes (many involve people caught in the US again after having been deported), and recent, highly publicized raids...

Bush vows to ease rules for foreign workers By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 15/03/2007 George W Bush ended a seven-day tour of South America yesterday vowing to introduce reform on immigration, the issue that most alienates the US president from his dwindling band of supporters in the region and from his own party at home. "A good migration law will help both economies and will help the security of both countries," he said at a joint press conference with Felipe Calderon, his Mexican counterpart. "If people can come into our country, for example, on a temporary...

Businesses would receive a tax credit equal to 10 percent of what they spend each year to improve the fitness of their employees -- everything from building on-site workout rooms to subsidizing health club memberships -- under a bill pending in the state Assembly. The measure also would allow employers to claim the same credit for half the cost of hiring a person or company to provide nutritional advice, yoga instruction or substance-abuse prevention. "We're trying to help people get into healthy, active lifestyles to prevent them from needing the hospital in the first place," said the bill's author, Assemblyman...

JEFFERSON CITY–Following a state employee’s tip that tonight led to the detainment of dozens of suspected illegal immigrants, Gov. Matt Blunt today ousted a state contractor who hired illegal workers and ordered state agencies to enact a no tolerance policy through tough new contract protections.

Vermont needs to put out more of a welcome mat for Mexican workers employed at dairy farms around the state or those workers might start looking for jobs elsewhere, a Mexican consulate official in Boston says. Rodrigo Marquez, deputy counsel for the Mexican consulate in Boston, said last month that Vermont has a reputation among Mexican workers in New England as a place where they have to live in isolation because of a constant fear of deportation. Many of the estimated 2,000 Mexicans working on farms in Vermont are believed to have entered the country illegally. Nationally, there are more...

Aid has cropped up for California workers and growers hurt by a devastating cold snap that froze more than $1 billion in crops and left thousands jobless. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he had issued an executive order to waive a one-week waiting period required before filing for unemployment. The frigid temperatures that dealt an $800 million blow to citrus growers and other industries earlier this month left more than 12,000 farm workers jobless. "This way we can provide quick help for the people who need help right way," the governor said during a visit to Tulare County where he...

MONTROSE — Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) cosponsored a bill introduced last week intended to ease the burdens of farmers and the immigrant workers they hire. “The senator (Salazar) is supportive of the bill in its form as standalone,” Drew Nannis, Salazar’s press secretary, said. However, the senator would like to see it passed as part of comprehensive immigration reform that would attend to problems such as border security and human rights as well. The bipartisan Senate Bill 237, known as AgJOBS, would allow illegal immigrants who have worked in agriculture at least 150 days of the past two years to...

In an apparent crackdown on illegal immigrants that may signal more to come, Cintas, the large uniform manufacturer, placed six employees from its San Jose plant on unpaid leave Monday. The move came after the workers failed to verify their Social Security numbers, a document required by employers to prove their workers have the right to be employed in the United States. About 60 Cintas workers, labor organizers and immigrant advocates, rallying outside the East San Jose plant Monday afternoon, denounced the action. With 30,000 workers in five states, Cintas, is believed to be the first company in the country...

In one instance, a county employee received a $5,000 reimbursement for a three-week class at Harvard University that cost $10,000. But the report found the employee attended class on county time and submitted the reimbursement request a year after the course was completed -- both violations of the program's guidelines.

For prostitutes working the streets of New Orleans, the post-flood era has sparked a boom in business, largely owing to the influx of an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 out-of-town workers away from their families with money to blow, police said. It's "like the Super Bowl" for sex workers, said Deputy Chief James Scott, commander of the Police Department's Intelligence Division, from his division's headquarters in a trailer. Though police are making more arrests for prostitution than before Hurricane Katrina, Scott said quantifying such results is difficult because undercover officers often can't develop conclusive evidence to make a clear-cut prostitution case....

Chicago Workers Practice Emergency Drill Friday September 8, 2006 3:46 AM By MICHAEL TARM Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) - Thousands of people working in downtown high-rise buildings left their jobs early Thursday to test the city's response to a terrorist attack or other emergency. Participants, many with tennis shoes on their feet and water bottles in hand, left their offices and, under the direction of emergency teams, walked about five blocks to an assessment area. Once checked in, they were free to go. Officials said more than 3,000 people took part in the voluntary drill, which involved four properties...

Happy Labor Day: We're All Workers! by Edward Hudgins The Atlas Society & Objectivist Center ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org When Congress declared Labor Day a national holiday in 1894 it marked not only a celebration by workers but a division of Americans into groups often seen as opposed to one another. The day grew out of a desire to get governments to force employers to offer certain terms of employment to workers. The first Labor Day parade took place in 1882 in New York and was organized by Peter McGuire who helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. The "labor"...

The federal government is considering new rules that would toughen laws against companies hiring undocumented immigrants. The proposed regulations would require companies to respond promptly to letters from the government alerting them to discrepancies between the names of employees and their Social Security numbers, or else be liable for violating immigration laws. Employers currently are under no obligation to respond to these “no-match” letters from the Social Security Administration; there are no criminal or administrative penalties. But if the new regulations are enacted, companies would be liable for having “constructive knowledge” of hiring undocumented immigrants – if they were to...

WASHINGTON - Big increases in immigration since 1990 have not hurt employment prospects for American workers, says a study released Thursday. The report comes as Congress and much of the nation are debating immigration policy, a big issue in this fall's midterm congressional elections. The Pew Hispanic Center found no evidence that increases in immigration led to higher unemployment among Americans, said Rakesh Kochhar, who authored the study. Kochhar said other factors, such as economic growth, played a larger role than immigration in setting the job market for Americans. The study, however, did not look at whether wages were affected...

The Schwarzenegger administration must ask state lawmakers for the money to hire hundreds of mental health workers for California's prison system, under a federal judge's order made public Monday. The order from U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton is the latest in a string of actions in which federal overseers are driving reforms in the state's troubled corrections department. Separate lawsuits have placed federal courts in charge of much of the state's prison operations, including inmate safety, employee discipline and its inmate health care and mental health systems. A state court, meanwhile, is ordering reforms to the juvenile justice system. Last...