The landscape of American employment is being dramatically altered by an expanding system of guestworker visas issued to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. A new report by Global Workers Justice Alliance, Visas Inc: Corporate Control and Policy Incoherence in the U.S. Temporary Foreign Labor System, provides the first comprehensive analysis of the many visas that employers use and misuse to bring foreign workers into the U.S.The system is vulnerable to abuse by employers who use foreign labor to undermine established wages and working conditions in the U.S. The result is that U.S. workers are losing out on opportunities, and foreign workers have almost no protection from exploitation, unpaid wages, unsafe conditions and even trafficking and other abuses.

At this forum, Cathleen Caron  and Ashwini Sukthankar will discuss the report’s findings, the lack of regulation and oversight, and the potential for reform. Kanthi Salgadu, who came to the U.S. as a domestic worker on one of the visas analyzed in the report, will discuss her experience as a trafficking survivor. Daniel Costa will  discuss the overall impact of the temporary foreign worker visa system on the American economy and moderate the proceedings.

Presenters:

Cathleen Caron, Executive Director, Global Workers Justice Alliance

Ashwini Sukthankar, International labor rights researcher and advocate, author of Visas Inc

Kanthi Salgadu, member of the Survivor Advisory Caucus of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking

 

Discussant and Moderator:

Daniel Costa, Immigration Policy Analyst, Economic Policy Institute

 

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

12:00-2:00 pm

Lunch will be provided.

 

REGISTER HERE

 

Location:

Economic Policy Institute

1333 H Street, NW

Suite 300

Washington, DC 20005