(no subject)
Dear Prof. Rodrik,
I just read your op-ed piece in the times and I found it refreshing to hear that someone out there understands how free trade, that does not also apply to the labor market, hurts workers.
However, one of the statements in the piece confused me: "To help poor nations the most, the program must ensure that guest workers return to their home countries." Why is this important? Is the program about helping poor people or is about helping poor nations? It seems more important to help people.
Isn't rather perverse that people can't put down real roots in our country under this program? The forced transience of the guest worker program seems like one of its worst features. Our economy and the people in such a program would benefit most if it lead to full citizenship. There is no point in having "sort-of" citizens in the country who can’t participate in politics and who have no incentive to build communities or anything of permanence, since they know they have to leave.
If we really want to improve the economy through immigration we should gradually increase the number of legal immigrants we allow in. We should give all legal immigrants full rights. All of the workers in this country deserve to be on equal footing and not limited to working only in certain industries for certain spans of time.
A temporary worker program is not a brilliant new idea. We already tried this in the 60s. Bracaro Program made it legal for farm workers from Mexico to come to the US provided they worked certain jobs-- and only as non-citizens. The U.S. Department of Labor officer in charge of the Bracaro Program, Lee G. Williams, once called it "legalized slavery."
While the new temporary worker program provides (in writing) more protection (but not enough) than the old one it is unlikely that an over-taxed immigration system will, in addition to handling a flood of new immigrants, be able to ensure that these guidelines are followed. If other similar programs are any indicator, the guidelines will mostly likely be ignored and any temporary worker brazen enough to ask for, say minimum wage will most certainly be ignored.
Sincerely,
Susan Murray
I just read your op-ed piece in the times and I found it refreshing to hear that someone out there understands how free trade, that does not also apply to the labor market, hurts workers.
However, one of the statements in the piece confused me: "To help poor nations the most, the program must ensure that guest workers return to their home countries." Why is this important? Is the program about helping poor people or is about helping poor nations? It seems more important to help people.
Isn't rather perverse that people can't put down real roots in our country under this program? The forced transience of the guest worker program seems like one of its worst features. Our economy and the people in such a program would benefit most if it lead to full citizenship. There is no point in having "sort-of" citizens in the country who can’t participate in politics and who have no incentive to build communities or anything of permanence, since they know they have to leave.
If we really want to improve the economy through immigration we should gradually increase the number of legal immigrants we allow in. We should give all legal immigrants full rights. All of the workers in this country deserve to be on equal footing and not limited to working only in certain industries for certain spans of time.
A temporary worker program is not a brilliant new idea. We already tried this in the 60s. Bracaro Program made it legal for farm workers from Mexico to come to the US provided they worked certain jobs-- and only as non-citizens. The U.S. Department of Labor officer in charge of the Bracaro Program, Lee G. Williams, once called it "legalized slavery."
While the new temporary worker program provides (in writing) more protection (but not enough) than the old one it is unlikely that an over-taxed immigration system will, in addition to handling a flood of new immigrants, be able to ensure that these guidelines are followed. If other similar programs are any indicator, the guidelines will mostly likely be ignored and any temporary worker brazen enough to ask for, say minimum wage will most certainly be ignored.
Sincerely,
Susan Murray