AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler released the following statement on the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement of enhanced procedures to hold exploitative employers accountable:
Every worker, regardless of immigration status, deserves a safe and fair workplace free from exploitation. This announcement supports our efforts to ensure that immigrant workers who take action to help enforce our labor laws will be protected from retaliation.
These commonsense procedures reinforce the Biden administration’s commitment to protect all workers in our country and hold employers accountable for egregious violations of our labor and employment laws. Making it safe for immigrant workers to exercise their protected rights and file claims when they are mistreated helps lift wages and working conditions for all of us. These are exactly the sort of tools we need to help rein in rampant wage theft, prevent needless workplace fatalities and combat the shameful resurgence of child labor in the 21st century. We will continue our work to utilize and further strengthen these vital protections.
Despite increasing evidence of our nation’s reliance on immigrant workers to help fuel our economy, despicable efforts to villainize and dehumanize immigrants continue to escalate. Working people know better than to fall for those divide and conquer tactics. Immigrants aren’t blocking us from having good jobs—greedy and abusive bosses are. And the only way we win the good jobs workers expect and deserve is through unity.
Contact: Liz Vlock, 202-637-5018