Just how cheap is the cheap labor in Texas? Sometimes, it’s free. Guillermo Perez, 41, is undocumented and has been working commercial construction jobs in Austin for 13 years.
“[The employer] said he didn’t have the money to pay me and he owed me $1,200,” Perez says of one job. “I told him that I’m going to the Texas Workforce Commission, which I did. Then after that, he came back two weeks later and paid me.”
The Politics of Wage Suppression: Inside ALEC’s Legislative Campaign Against Low-Paid Workers
Main Findings:
• ALEC’s “model legislation” includes multiple proposals to weaken or repeal wage standards that protect the earnings of low-‐paid workers. These proposals include measures to repeal state minimum wage laws, reduce minimum wage rates for youth and tipped workers, weaken overtime compensation policies, and block local governments from establishing living wage ordinances.
• Since January 2011, legislators from 31 states have introduced 105 bills that aim to suppress the wages of low-‐paid workers by repealing or weakening core wage standards at the state or local level. 67 of these 105 bills were directly sponsored or co-‐sponsored by ALEC-‐affiliated legislators from 25 states.
• As conservative majorities assume power in 31 statehouses this year – including 15 statehouses under the control of veto-‐proof supermajorities – ALEC’s wage suppression agenda poses a threat to the earnings and economic security of low-‐paid workers across the country.
Recent actions by Federal authorities in Texas – namely the arrest of six top officials of Dibon Solutions for conspiracy to commit H-1B visa fraud and wire fraud charges – shows an uptick in prosecution of guest worker program abusers.
H1-B visa fraud lowers the wages of American workers by flooding markets with cheap foreign labor. It also allows for abuse of those coming to America to work when the control of their passport and legal status is in the hands of unscrupulous employers.