Business Law Migrant Workers

Migrant Workers

Jessica Easterday

MG260 Business Law

July 13, 2014

Professor Saundra McDavid

In our culture, we are a society who choose to help the people in need. As a nation we have created laws to protect the ones we are helping and ourselves. What are the ethical and legal issues concerning the plight of migrant workers related to business? What does it mean for the business when migrant workers are hired?

It may come to a shock that migrant workers were first invited to help the United States (U.S.). The United States has two guest worker programs. Under these programs employers are authorized to import employees. The employees are hired to seasonal and temporary work that last less than a year. The two types of programs are H-2A and H-2B. The H-2A is for agricultural work and H-2B is for non-agricultural work. Under the federal law, any employer who would like to import guest workers have to get prior approval from the Department of Labor (DOL). In the request, the employers seeking approval need to certify there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available to perform work at the place and time needed and the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed will not be “adversely affected” by the importation of guest workers.

The federal law speaks of parts where the guest worker can only work for the employers who requested the approval from DOL. This can increase ethical and legal issues. If the work place contains abuse or mistreatment and what was promised is not provided, the guest worker has very few or no options other than to go home. This could add extra stress to the workers because the H-2 visas are only for the individuals. The guest workers leave their families to complete the temporary work.

Employers started using migrates during World War II. The Bracero Program (1942-1964) was the response from Congress when growers’ had shortage worries of...