New ‘Yelp’ for Guest Workers in U.S. Challenges the Employer Power Dynamic
A flawed U.S. immigration system means workers are losing. Employers and recruiters of guest workers almost always hold all the power while workers themselves have very little information about future employment and living situations. But now there is a new online tool for migrant workers that will allow them to challenge this dynamic and make more informed decisions about migrating for work.
A new initiative called Contratados, which refers to being contracted under a temporary work program, aims to give workers more power in the recruitment process and makes sure employers and recruiters are held accountable for their actions. Spearheaded by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), a trans-national migrant worker center with offices in Mexico and the United States, Contratados features an interactive website, a hotline, pocket-sized know-your-rights comics, audio novelas and a transnational radio campaign designed to provide workers with resources to more securely navigate the recruitment and employment process.
Migrant workers recruited to work in the United States on guest worker visas routinely face well-documented forms of abuse and exploitation. This exploitation often begins at home, as workers take on enormous debt to pay high fees to recruitment firms for the privilege of securing a job, and many times the terms and condition of employment are misrepresented by such firms. The recruitment of workers takes place in an unregulated, lawless space that leaves workers vulnerable to mistreatment once in the United States, including fraud, abuse and intimidated by recruiters and employers and employer confiscation of travel documents. Further, guest workers are unable to change employers if they find themselves in an abusive situation, and those who do complain or attempt to organize face threats, blacklisting and physical coercion.
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Global-Action/New-Yelp-for-Guest-Workers-in-U.S.-Challenges-the-Employer-Power-Dynamic