Author: Peter Rousmaniere

OSHA and regional business association join forces to train Hispanic workers

The following is a press release by OSHA about this training program. Delmarva Safety Association works with Delaware, Maryland and Virginia employers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Delmarva Safety Association (DSA) recognize the value of establishing a collaborative relationship to foster safer and more healthful American workplaces. OSHA and DSA hereby form an Alliance to provide DSA members and others with information, guidance, and access to training resources that will help them protect employees’ health and safety, with a specific focus on reducing workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths among the Spanish-speaking workforce. In developing this Alliance, OSHA and DSA recognize that OSHA’s State Plan and Consultation Project partners are an integral part of the OSHA national effort.
OSHA and DSA will work together to achieve the following training and education goals:
* Develop training and education programs on occupational safety and health issues specifically targeted to employers of Hispanic workers.
* Deliver information for inclusion in safety and health training for supervisors that addresses important cultural considerations and sensitivities.
* Deliver or arrange for the delivery of safety and health training which address these cultural considerations.
See below for the complete press release:

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Robert Feenstra on the powerful dynamics linking U.S. and Mexican workforces

Technology advances proceed apace while America is outsourcing jobs to developing countries. These two forces combine to increase the level of migration in the world. Much of this migration is into the U.S. by far the biggest in-migration country in the world. The net effect of this cycle is to improve middle class lives in the U.S. but worsen work prospects for poorly educated Americans.
Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis, who has long been a student of economic productivity, made a presentation on “Globalization and its Impact on Labor.” He goes a long way to describing the overwhelming power of forces behind the growth of low wage immigrant labor (including illegal labor) in the United States.
The essence of Feenstra’s story, leavened with information he does not include, is this:
Manufacturing labor in both the U.S. and Mexico have not benefited in the past 10-15 years even while the service workforce has benefited, by capturing the lion’s share of increases in the compensation pie.
This is in part because manufacturing growth in Mexico, expected due to NAFTA, failed to take place except in isolated areas like along the American border (Manquiladora). Thus good manufacturing jobs were not available at anywhere near the numbers needed for the ocuntry’s work population. In part, a disproportionate share of economic gains went to service, not manufacturing jobs. The manufacturing sector was also hurt by American and Chinese competition.
Relatively disadvantaged workers in both countries have been making hard decisions on where or if to work. With economic distances expanding between workforce segments, making catch-up less probable, choices narrow down to if and where to migrate.
Mexicans, especially those at the lower end of that country’s education scale, have little prospects of rewards in Mexico and have come to the U.S. to, in effect, make middle class life more comfortable for Americans. Poorly educated American workers have been withdrawing at increasing rates from the workforce, either into part time work, idleness or disability pensions.
Here in the style of Powerpoint bullets, is the story:
One, technology is concentrating economic rewards in the service sector workforce and leaving production (i.e. manufacturing) stagnant. This is happening in developed as well as developing countries – The U.S. as well as Mexico. In the U.S. service workforce relative wages compared to manufacturing wages grew strongly since the mid 1980s.
Two, production jobs in the U.S. are being off-shored and an increasing number of service jobs as well. The next effect is the increase the average compensation of better educated services workers – in both the U.S. AND in the countries providing the off-shored labor.
Three, this offshoring has been responsible for about 1% of the 2.5% – 4% annual productivity growth in the U.S. economy. This is a big deal.
Fourth, in Mexico manufacturing worker wages have not grown appreciatively with NAFTA, which was supposed to set off an economic boom. Feenstra does not discuss farm workers in Mexico, but one gets the impression that both farm and manufacturing wages in Mexico have lagged.
Fifth, there has been a huge transborder shift of workers at the lower end of the wage and education scale.
Mexican labor has moved into the U.S. just as the most vulnerable American workers have been withdrawing from the American workforce. Not addressed by Feenstra, the labor force participation of poorly educated blacks is very low.
Some 70% of the American workforce with less than 8 years of education are foreign born, and 22% of the workforce with 8 to 11 year’ education.
And American workers are heading out the door. The SSDI (disabled worker insurance program) of the U.S. has been growing – very sharply in the past few years. Those exiting the labor market for federal disability pensions are largely manufacturing workers with limited education. In 1995, there were 1.1 million SSDI awards made. In 2004, there were 2.2 million made.
The European Union has sought from the beginning to stem migration from poorer new members by systmatically suppprting infrastructure and manaufacturing growth in the new members.
See Feenstra here.

Immigration’s impact on American wages by educational level of workforce

Here are important research data on the impact of how foreign born workers hurt some and help other Americans in wages. Note that these figures pertain only to wage impact. They do not address the lower costs of goods and services and greater corporate productivity which immigration and its companion free trade bring
POORLY EDUCATED WORKERS
Ten percent of U.S. born workers have less than a 12 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 70% of all workers with less than 9th grade education, and 22% of workers with 8-11 years’ education. In these education categories, foreign born workers MARKEDLY DEPRESS wages by about 4%.
HIGH SCHOOL GRADS and “SOME COLLEGE” EDUCATED WORKERS
Eighty percent of U.S. born workers have between 12 and 16 years’ education. Foreign born workers make up 13% of the HS graduate workforce and 10% of the some college work force. (13% of all workers with HS degree, 10% with some college, and about 15% with college degree.)
For the HS graduate and some college workforces, foreign born workers SLIGHTLY INCREASE wages very slightly, by about 1% – 2%
COLLEGE AND MORE EDUCATED WORKERS
Ten percent of U.S. born workers have masters, professional or doctoral degrees. Foreign born workers make up 15%, 18% and 30% of these workforce categories, respectivelly. These foreign born workers MARGINALLY DEPRESS wages, by about 0.2%.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
About 4.9% of the American workforce is made up of illegal workers. Few of them have a HS degree or higher education. They GREATLY DEPRESS wages for all workers with less than a HS degree – by 8% — and MARGINALLY INCREASE the wages of the more highly educated workforce – by about 1%.
The data come from Table 5 and Figure 8 of a 2/8/07 presentation by Robert Feenstra of U.C. at Davis. he draws from research by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, about whom I have posted.

Poorly educated immigrant workers hurt, help American workers: 2005 study

Let’s call this the Home Depot Effect: poorly educated workers compete for jobs, and benefit better educated workers by lowering the cost of goods while stimulating middle class growth.
Following is the abstract of a paper written in 2005 by Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanne Peri for the Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No. 5226, 2005, (alternative version National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 11672, 2005: “Rethinking the gains from immigration: theory and evidence from the U.S.”
Recent influential empirical work has emphasized the negative impact immigrants have on the wages of US-born workers, arguing that immigration harms less educated American workers in particular and all US-born workers in general. Because US and foreign-born workers belong to different skill groups that are imperfectly substitutable, one needs to articulate a production function that aggregates different types of labor (and accounts for complementarity and substitution effects) in order to calculate the various effects of immigrant labor on US-born labor.
We introduce such a production function, making the crucial assumption that US and foreign-born workers with similar education and experience levels may nevertheless be imperfectly substitutable, and allowing for endogenous capital accumulation.
This function successfully accounts for the negative impact of the relative skill levels of immigrants on the relative wages of US workers. However, contrary to the findings of previous literature, overall immigration generates a large positive effect on the average wages of US-born workers. We show evidence of this positive effect by estimating the impact of immigration on both average wages and housing values across US metropolitan areas (1970-2000). We also reproduce this positive effect by simulating the behavior of average wages and housing prices in an open city-economy, with optimizing US-born agents who respond to an inflow of foreign-born workers of the size and composition comparable to the immigration of the 1990s.

New York Times editorial on immigration reform.

A New York Times editorial, “They Are America,” is trying to shake the country into paying attention to what was going to be a major legislative thrust this year: immigration reform. At least, that seemed probably before Iraq fell apart. This editorial goes down a long list of small and large missteps and outrages upon immigrants, from fence-bulding and factory raids by ICE to DNA testing. the authors stop short of describing what precisely they want in immigration reform, beyond management remedies to some practicef of the Bush Administration.
The entire editorial is below.

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Skilled foreign workers – summary statistics

Now waves of immigrants are mostly not skilled workers. But foreign born workers have a huge share of some skilled job categories.
Thanks to Immigrant Voice for bringing to my attention these figures.
Skilled workers are a small minority of U.S. legal immigrants. Of the 940,000 legal immigrants recorded in 2004, only 16% were skilled employment-based immigrants. This means that 150,000 of the almost one million new legal immigrants (permanent or temporary) came on a skilled based authorization. About 40% of these skilled immigrants had advanced degrees, or 5 or more years of experience after a baccalaureate degree.
Per Immigrant Voice, the impact of these workers’ contributions to American competitiveness belies their small number, because they make up a large share of all workers in certain professions.
In 1996 17% of all scientists and engineers were foreign born. That rose to 24% in 2002. Among scientists and engineers with PhDs or professional degrees, 38% were foreign born in 1996 and 43% in 2002.
Go to Chpter 2, page 57 of the 2006 Economic Report of the President for more information.

Essential Worker Immigration Coalition: Reform platform

This lobbying group / business association is gearing up for immigration reform this year. It wants more immigrant workers, the more legal the better.
Here is its platform for reform:
Reform should be comprehensive: addressing both future economic needs for future workers and undocumented workers already in the United States.
Reform should strengthen national security by providing for the screening of foreign workers and creating a disincentive for illegal immigration.
Reform should strengthen the rule of law by establishing clear, sensible immigration laws that are efficiently and vigorously enforced.
Reform should create an immigration system that functions efficiently for employers, workers, and government agencies.
Reform should create a program that allows hard working, tax paying undocumented workers to earn legal status.
Reform should ensure that U.S. workers are not displaced by foreign workers.
Reform should ensure that all workers enjoy the same labor law protections.
The policy platform goes on….

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How long do Mexican migrants work in the U.S.? 6 – 11 years

From the abstract of recent study by the Austin TX based research firm of Econone: In this paper we use data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) to estimate the number of years a Mexican born foreign worker could reasonably be expected to be employed or seeking employment in the U.S. labor market. We find, consistent with other studies of Mexican migrant workers, that the typical Mexican born worker who migrates to the U.S. to work does not spend their entire working life in the U.S. Our analysis shows the typical Mexican migrant can be expected to be active in the U.S. workforce between 6.1 and 11.1 years on average.

Contractor insurance fraud and why it matters

Thanks to Workers Comp Insider for alerting me to this Insurance Journal article about building contractors who cheat on their workers comp insurance. Why does this matter for immigrant workers? Because employers who cheat on insurance – buying too little, or none at all – are those mostly likely to hire vulnerable immigrant workers and cheat these workers on other labor rights. The news story said nothing about the composition of the workforce, but I bet a lot of the lower skilled work was being performed by immigrant workers. I call this combination of insurance fraud and employer abuses a toxic cocktail that can kill.

Human trafficking suit in CT

The Associated Press today reported a federal suit by Guatamalan workers in Connecticut alleging a nursery engaged in human trafficking. The suit goes after both the nursery, Imperial Nurseries, and the labor contractor. If the suit is half true, it’s still 100% awful. Yale Law School students helped to prepare the suit. The labor contractor, who appears to have been fired some time ago by the nursery, seems to agree with the suit but denies it know anything about it.
Story follows:

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