As reported by C. Eduardo Siqueira MD, ScDm on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, governmental and non-profit forces have come together to improve work safety for immigrants from Brazil. I have posted often on Brazilian workers, and once posted on a leading Brazilian worker center in Boston. I have pasted below a summary of the worker death problem among Brazilians and of the coalition mobilized to do change things for the better.
Siqueria’s contact information is: Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health and Sustainability, UMass Lowell, 3 Solomont Way Suite 3, Lowell, MA 01854-5127 Ph: (978) 934-3147 carlos_siqueira@uml.edu
The report:
Fatal Work- related Injuries among Brazilians in Massachusetts
1999-2007
This fact sheet summarizes information from Massachusetts on fatal work-related injuries among Brazilian-born workers.i Little information has been publicly available about fatal injuries among this group of workers to date. In Massachusetts, as in the U.S. as a whole, Hispanic workers have been found to have high rates of fatal work-related injuries compared to non-Hispanic white workers.1,2 However, deaths of Brazilian born-workers may or may not be included in the Hispanic fatality count and are not generally reported separately.ii

Continue reading An important work safety program for Brazilian workers in Massachusetts

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has launched a more comprehensive information service for policy making and research about immigration.
The Migration Policy Institute describes itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide.” It is unveiling an initiative: the creation of a National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. “The Center will connect government agency administrators, researchers, community leaders, service providers, the media, and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today’s high rates of immigration create in local communities.”
The underlying goal appears to be to generate more positive support for pro-immigration policy at the federal level.
The MPI’s press release goes onto say:

As part of the launch of the Center, MPI is also unveiling its electronic resource center, which provides online information and analysis across more than a dozen integration subfields, and a new, cutting-edge data tool that provides instant access to the most current demographic and social information on the foreign born in each state. The electronic resource center provides “one-stop shopping” for individuals seeking information on integration topics ranging from proposed changes in the U.S. citizenship test and application fees to the performance of immigrant students in U.S. schools. And, with the click of a button, the new state data tool allows users to see data such as the percent change in the foreign-born population in Georgia from 1990 to 2005, or the top countries of origin for the foreign born in California, based on data from the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey.

Three broad demographic trends make the need to focus on integration clear. First, high numbers: Over half of new workers in the U.S. economy in the 1990s were immigrants. Second, the dispersal of immigrants to nontraditional receiving areas: The state with the fastest growth between 2000 and 2005 was South Carolina. Third, shifting legal status: The share of immigrants who are undocumented rose dramatically over the past decade, rising to almost 30 percent all U.S. immigrants

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Full text copy of the press release:

Continue reading A new information center for immigration issues

The Migration Policy Institute published a paper describing France’s new immigration law of 2006. Below are quotes from the study, which says that France is well aware that it must compete with other global players for international talent. Countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all actively recruit migrants and select them according to criteria that range from education and language skills to adaptability and age. I have already posted on Canadian policy and an extensive article in the Economist about the effort of other countries to recruit highly skilled labor (use “search” to find them.)
Comparisons between the U.S. and France
Population: U.S. 300 million France 61 million
Percentage foreign born: U.S. 12.5% France 10%
Unauthorized residents: U.S. 3% France 2%
Work based entry as % of total immigration: U.S. 22% France 11.9%
Family reunification as % of total immigration: U.S. 58% France 64%
Foreign students: U.S. 621,000 France 250,000
Students from abroad:
France has double per capita the number of foreign students and is trying to keep them in France to work. Between 2001 and 2003, the number of foreign students increased by 50 percent — a significantly larger increase than that which occurred in Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States. (Australia is ahead of all in recruiting foreign students.) The new law would require foreign students to receive approval to study in France from their country of origin. Once in France, foreign students who receive a masters or higher degree would be allowed to pursue a “first professional experience” that contributes to the economic development of both France and the student’s country of origin
The law in general:
France introduced in July 24, 2006 a new immigration law with fur objectives: recruiting skilled workers; facilitating foreign students’ stay; tightening the rules on family reunification; and limiting access to residence and citizenship. In sum, it aims to overhaul France’s immigration system by giving the government new powers to encourage high-skilled migration, fight illegal migration more effectively, and restrict family immigration.
Although the new law does not take effect until early 2007, one of its pillars is already making itself felt. The number of people deported for not having the required documents reached nearly 13,000 by the end of July 2006, more than halfway to the Interior Ministry’s 2006 goal of 25,000, inciting protests from tens of thousands of French citizens.
The unrest illustrates that France will not have an easy transition to a selective immigration system that emphasizes employment-driven immigration at the expense of the 113,000 immigrants who arrive in France annually for family-related reasons and that carries out a robust campaign against illegal migration.
Skilled based immigration:

Continue reading France’s new skilled labor focus on immigration

The Texas Controller, Carolyn Strayhorn, issued on 12/9 what she calls the first comprehensive financial analysis by a state of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy, looking at gross state product, revenues generated, taxes paid and the cost of state services. Thanks to Cliff Treese for alerting me to it.
A supporter of a guest worker program, Stayhorn concludes that the absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received. However, local governments bore the burden of $1.44 billion in uncompensated health care costs and local law enforcement costs not paid for by the state.
You can find the report here. I have not yet analyzed it.
The Washington Post ran a story on the study. One thing the Post reporter noted was that since Texas does not have an income tax (I didn’t know that) the Texas analysis did not have to deal with unreported cash wages.
I have posted below section VI, the economics benefits analysis
VI. Economic Benefits
This section analyzes two issues:
* the economic impact of undocumented immigrants in Texas, including their contributions to state employment, wages and revenues over a 20-year period (2005 through 2025); and
* the contributions of undocumented immigrants on Texas government revenues.

Continue reading New Texas study says illegal immigrants are net benefit to economy

Frances Schreiberg of Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons, Farrise & Greenwood, an Oakland-based law firm, alerted me to a Chicago Tribune article focusing on the higher murder fatality rate among immigrant workers, and the need to protections for taxi drivers and retail workers. Jason Barab’s Confined Space is another source of information about immigrant worker deaths. I have previously posted an entry about Asian worker deaths on the job.
A Chicago Tribune analysis shows that in 2005, when foreign-born workers made up 15 percent of the nation’s workforce, 188 were murdered on the job, accounting for more than a third of the 564 workplace homicides, the highest ratio since the government began keeping track in 1992.
Much of this loss of life can be avoided with measures that are both well-known and not costly, experts say. But protecting cab drivers and store clerks hasn’t been as big a priority as saving lives on the factory floor, they add.
“This is a terrible thing and it is fixable,” says Rosemary Sokas, a workplace safety expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former official at the research arm of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
A $500 plastic shield that separates taxi drivers from passengers can save countless drivers’ lives, say experts like Sokas.
Between 1992 and 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available, 3,040 foreign-born workers were murdered on the job, according to government figures. Most of the victims were Mexicans, but the workplace homicide rates were the highest among immigrants from India, Cuba, Korea and Vietnam.
In 1998, OSHA published guidelines for late night retail workers, that included such recommendations as physical barriers (such as bulletproof enclosures), pass-through windows in late night retail, or deep service counters, alarm systems and panic buttons, elevated vantage points, clear visibility of service and cash register areas, bright and effective lighting, adequate staffing, arranging furniture to prevent entrapment and cash-handling controls, such as using drop safes.
Unfortunately, OSHA does not cite employes for not following the guidelines. In fact, OSHA rarely even investigates workplace homicides, especially in retail establishments. Large corporate chains generally follow the guidance, but not other stores.

The Massaschusetts gubernatorial race between a black Democratic nominee, who won a primary yesterday, and an aide Governor Mitt Romney who made one of the more colorful remarks about illegal immigrants. Lt Governor Kerry Healey, a Republican ,said last year during a radio interview that she opposed proposed legislation to enable children of illegal immigrant families to obtain the in-state tuition benefits for education at the state’s public colleges and universities. She said that they can perfectly well pay themselves for private college education, presumably at colleges such as Wellesley and Amherst. Healey owns homes on the North Shore of Massachusetts, Vermont and Florida. I wonder if her lawns are being manicured by illegal workers.

Here is my wrap up for the past six months. in short, life has become more uncertain for both illegal workers and their employers. And, Hispanics may have become more politicially mobilized.
First, the number of illegal workers may have grown from the outset of about 7.5 million, not so much because of new in-migration but because the normal level of out-migration by illegals may well have dropped to a trickle because it probably seen more riskier to try to get back into the U.S.
Second, the Senate and House of Representatives are deadlocked over an immigration bill. Because the dispute involves Republications as much as Democrats it seems to me very unlikely that any substantive legislation will pass this year.
This deadlock when combined with fire-fanning at the level of state politics creates more uncertainty among American companies who use illegal workers as employees or outsourced workers. There was a chance that they would be hit by RICO suits but that threat seems to have passed or at least been moderated by Supreme Court action of the Mohawk case (see my posting). they still can be hit by state and federal enforcement action.
The Katrina cleanup has been the largest aggregate new employer of illegal workers — some 5,000, but the estimate of a Tulane researcher. Two studies suggest that most if not substantially all of work injuries by these workers have been turfed out of the Louisiana workers comp system (see my postings for Katrina).
Another major development was the series of rallies of Hispanics in May to make their voices heard, their faces visible. This may well have been a turning point in which Hispanic households become more politically active, supporting politicians who seek a guest worker solution to the country’s illegal immigration mess.

Investment bank J.P.Morgan reported that about 20 million overseas Indian workers — NRIs, or non-resident Indians — remit $21 billion annually back to India, a sharp rise from the 1990s. These remittances are equivalent to double the size of foreign institutional investment inflows and about quarter the size of product export earnings for India.
I have previously posted on remittances to Latin America, estimated at $54 billion.

Public Act 94 -0511 (HB 3471), Illinois’ new Day Labor act went into effect January 1, 2006. This act is designed to fill a gap in labor protection laws.
The National Law Employment Project has said that the majority of workplace laws protecting day laborers and temporary workers were written for full-time, permanent employees. The short-term nature of the day labor and sub-contracting pose significant barriers to enforcement of laws and the workers do not receive the same benefits or wages as full-time permanent employees performing the same work.
Temporary employment agencies are integral to the day labor market. According to the Governor’s press release:

Although there are approximately 150 registered day and temporary labor service agencies with nearly 600 branch offices registered with the state, there are also many unlicensed agencies in Illinois.

Provisions of the Act include (per a press release from Governor’s Rod Blagojevich’s office):
Requiring agencies to provide workers with detailed employment and wage notices, which can be inspected by the IDOL;
Protecting day laborers’ paychecks from unreasonable deductions for meals and equipment;
Requiring agencies to pay workers for lost time when they are sent to a job, only to be sent back because the agency sent too many workers;
Requiring employers that contract with day or temporary labor agencies to verify that they are registered with IDOL or face monetary penalties;
Prohibiting agencies from charging workers fees for transportation between the agency and the job site and requiring that such transportation meet basic safety standards; and
Prohibiting agencies from retaliating or discriminating against a worker who exercises his or her rights under the Act and giving workers the right to sue for damages when harmed by violations.
This new law will allow IDOL to impose a $500 penalty against a day labor agency for each day it is not registered. For all other violations, the department may fine first-time violators up to $6,000 and repeat violators up to $2,500 per violation per day. To pay for increased enforcement of the day and temporary labor industry, the legislation increases agency registration fees to $1,000 and adds a fee of $250 per branch office.
The state has a hot line to report problems: 877-314-7052. Or, to file a complaint or get information go online. The reporting systems are described on the website of the IL Department of Labor’s webpage on day labor.

When applied to persons in the American workforce, these two terms refer to about the same population. At least I think so. Each has its advocates and distractors. I personally prefer undocumented worker, and generally use it. But if I cite a document which uses the term illegal alien, I also will use it to clarify the reference and out of deference to the author of the document.