Today’s
Washington Times examines a
provision in the Reid-Kennedy Senate Immigration bill that would require certain
foreign workers to be paid more than American workers doing the same
job.
This
provision, among others, will be examined at the House Education and the
Workforce Committee hearing next Wednesday, July 19th. The hearing will
take a broad look at the impact of the Reid-Kennedy bill on American workers and
their workplaces.
Senate bill
seeks more pay for aliens
By
Charles Hurt
THE
WASHINGTON
TIMES
July
13, 2006
The Senate
immigration bill would require that foreign construction laborers here under the
guest-worker program be paid well above the minimum wage, even as American
workers at the same work site could earn less.
The bill "would guarantee
wages to some foreign workers that could be higher than those paid to American
workers at the same work site," says a policy paper released this week by the
Senate's Republican Policy Committee. "This is unfair to U.S.
workers, inappropriate, and unnecessary."
The 11-page, harshly critical
analysis of the Senate immigration bill on this one point reveals how torn
Senate Republicans are over the larger issue of immigration.
Though the
bill was supported by Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, it was opposed
by the rest of the Senate Republican leadership and a majority of Republicans in
the chamber. And despite the support of Mr. Frist and Mr. McConnell, this week's
policy paper critical of the wage guarantees for foreign workers marks the
official stance of the Republican Policy Committee, which formulates and
implements the policies of the caucus.
Across the Capitol, House
Republicans are no more charitable about the Senate's immigration bill. They
announced yesterday seven new House hearings for later this month into how bad
they think the Senate bill is. One such hearing is titled: "Do the Reid-Kennedy
bill's amnesty provisions repeat the mistakes of the Immigration Reform and
Control Act of 1986?"
House Republicans are so critical of the Senate
bill that they can't bring themselves to call it by the name of any of the
several Republicans who played a larger role in passing it than Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid of Nevada or Sen. Edward M. Kennedy,
Massachusetts Democrat.
"Two-thirds of the people who voted for that
bill coming out of the Senate were Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid and
Senator Kennedy. So, it's the Reid-Kennedy bill," House Majority Leader John A.
Boehner said yesterday when asked why he refuses to credit any of the
Republicans who were instrumental in drafting the bill or any of the 23 Senate
Republicans who voted for it.
For their part, Democrats have begun
calling it the "Frist-McCain" bill, a reference to Mr. Frist and Sen. John
McCain, the Arizona Republican who has been one of the chief architects of the
Senate bill.
Back in the Senate yesterday, Judiciary Committee Chairman
Arlen Specter had an even harsher analysis of those -- mostly fellow Republicans
-- who oppose the Senate's approach, which would grant citizenship rights to
some 10 million illegal aliens.
A recent article he read about
immigration in Time magazine, he said during a hearing on immigration, "was
right on target in identifying the underlying racism and xenophobia which really
grips us despite our denial of it."
But provisions of the Senate bill
such as the wage guarantee for foreign workers raise concerns among more than
just racists and xenophobes.
"That certainly is negotiable to me," Mr.
McCain said yesterday.
The Davis Bacon Act of 1931 (DBA) requires that
the local prevailing wage be paid to all workers employed in federally
contracted construction or projects done for the District of Columbia. Those wages -- up to
four or five times higher in some fields than the federal minimum wage of $5.15
per hour -- are set by the Department of Labor.
The Senate's immigration
bill would require that the higher wages be paid to foreign temporary workers in
all construction occupations, even if the project isn't federally funded and
doesn't otherwise fall under DBA.
"In other words, foreign workers
employed in a construction job for which a DBA wage rate has been determined
could be guaranteed wages higher than those paid to American workers doing the
same job on the same private construction project for the same employer," the
policy paper reports.
The DBA wage rate for an air conditioning mechanic
in Alexandria or Montgomery County, for instance, is $30.27 an hour.
That mechanic also is guaranteed paid holidays for New Year's Day, Martin Luther
King's birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day,
Thanksgiving Day, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
In other
immigration bill matters, Mr. Reid late yesterday killed an effort by
Republicans to close a loophole in a federal law that bars federal immigration
officials from quickly returning to their home country Salvadorans who are
caught sneaking into the country. The provision dates from 1988, when El
Salvador was riven by a civil war that has long
since been settled.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the Democratic leader
supports treating Salvadorans the same as everyone else but, he said, the
amendment is too broad and had parliamentary problems.
•Jeffrey Sparshott contributed to this
report.
