American Guestworkers

American Guestworkers

Author: David Craig Griffith

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0271046228

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The H-2 program, originally based in Florida, is the longest running labor-importation program in the country. Over the course of a quarter-century of research, Griffith studied rural labor processes and their national and international effects. In this book, he examines the socioeconomic effects of the H-2 program on both the areas where the laborers work and the areas they are from, and, taking a uniquely humanitarian stance, he considers the effects of the program on the laborers themselves.


Book Synopsis American Guestworkers by : David Craig Griffith

Download or read book American Guestworkers written by David Craig Griffith and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The H-2 program, originally based in Florida, is the longest running labor-importation program in the country. Over the course of a quarter-century of research, Griffith studied rural labor processes and their national and international effects. In this book, he examines the socioeconomic effects of the H-2 program on both the areas where the laborers work and the areas they are from, and, taking a uniquely humanitarian stance, he considers the effects of the program on the laborers themselves.


Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism

Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism

Author: Immanuel Ness

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0252093372

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Political scientist Immanuel Ness thoroughly investigates the use of guest workers in the United States, the largest recipient of migrant labor in the world. Ness argues that the use of migrant labor is increasing in importance and represents despotic practices calculated by key U.S. business leaders in the global economy to lower labor costs and expand profits under the guise of filling a shortage of labor for substandard or scarce skilled jobs. Drawing on ethnographic field research, government data, and other sources, Ness shows how worker migration and guest worker programs weaken the power of labor in both sending and receiving countries. His in-depth case studies of the rapid expansion of technology and industrial workers from India and hospitality workers from Jamaica reveal how these programs expose guest workers to employers' abuses and class tensions in their home countries while decreasing jobs for American workers and undermining U.S. organized labor. Where other studies of labor migration focus on undocumented immigrant labor and contend immigrants fill jobs that others do not want, this is the first to truly advance understanding of the role of migrant labor in the transformation of the working class in the early twenty-first century. Questioning why global capitalists must rely on migrant workers for economic sustenance, Ness rejects the notion that temporary workers enthusiastically go to the United States for low-paying jobs. Instead, he asserts the motivations for improving living standards in the United States are greatly exaggerated by the media and details the ways organized labor ought to be protecting the interests of American and guest workers in the United States.


Book Synopsis Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism by : Immanuel Ness

Download or read book Guest Workers and Resistance to U.S. Corporate Despotism written by Immanuel Ness and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political scientist Immanuel Ness thoroughly investigates the use of guest workers in the United States, the largest recipient of migrant labor in the world. Ness argues that the use of migrant labor is increasing in importance and represents despotic practices calculated by key U.S. business leaders in the global economy to lower labor costs and expand profits under the guise of filling a shortage of labor for substandard or scarce skilled jobs. Drawing on ethnographic field research, government data, and other sources, Ness shows how worker migration and guest worker programs weaken the power of labor in both sending and receiving countries. His in-depth case studies of the rapid expansion of technology and industrial workers from India and hospitality workers from Jamaica reveal how these programs expose guest workers to employers' abuses and class tensions in their home countries while decreasing jobs for American workers and undermining U.S. organized labor. Where other studies of labor migration focus on undocumented immigrant labor and contend immigrants fill jobs that others do not want, this is the first to truly advance understanding of the role of migrant labor in the transformation of the working class in the early twenty-first century. Questioning why global capitalists must rely on migrant workers for economic sustenance, Ness rejects the notion that temporary workers enthusiastically go to the United States for low-paying jobs. Instead, he asserts the motivations for improving living standards in the United States are greatly exaggerated by the media and details the ways organized labor ought to be protecting the interests of American and guest workers in the United States.


Empire's Guestworkers

Empire's Guestworkers

Author: Matthew Casey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 110821066X

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Haitian seasonal migration to Cuba is central to narratives about race, national development, and US imperialism in the early twentieth-century Caribbean. Filling a major gap in the literature, this innovative study reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Migrants' efforts to improve their living and working conditions and practice their religions shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba as each experienced US imperialism.


Book Synopsis Empire's Guestworkers by : Matthew Casey

Download or read book Empire's Guestworkers written by Matthew Casey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haitian seasonal migration to Cuba is central to narratives about race, national development, and US imperialism in the early twentieth-century Caribbean. Filling a major gap in the literature, this innovative study reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Migrants' efforts to improve their living and working conditions and practice their religions shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba as each experienced US imperialism.


No Man's Land

No Man's Land

Author: Cindy Hahamovitch

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-08-08

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1400840023

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From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a state-brokered compromise between employers who wanted foreign workers and those who feared rising numbers of immigrants. Unlike immigrants, guestworkers couldn't settle, bring their families, or become citizens, and they had few rights. Indeed, instead of creating a manageable form of migration, guestworker programs created an especially vulnerable class of labor. Based on a vast array of sources from U.S., Jamaican, and English archives, as well as interviews, No Man's Land tells the history of the American "H2" program, the world's second oldest guestworker program. Since World War II, the H2 program has brought hundreds of thousands of mostly Jamaican men to the United States to do some of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous farmwork for some of its biggest and most powerful agricultural corporations, companies that had the power to import and deport workers from abroad. Jamaican guestworkers occupied a no man's land between nations, protected neither by their home government nor by the United States. The workers complained, went on strike, and sued their employers in class action lawsuits, but their protests had little impact because they could be repatriated and replaced in a matter of hours. No Man's Land puts Jamaican guestworkers' experiences in the context of the global history of this fast-growing and perilous form of labor migration.


Book Synopsis No Man's Land by : Cindy Hahamovitch

Download or read book No Man's Land written by Cindy Hahamovitch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-08 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a state-brokered compromise between employers who wanted foreign workers and those who feared rising numbers of immigrants. Unlike immigrants, guestworkers couldn't settle, bring their families, or become citizens, and they had few rights. Indeed, instead of creating a manageable form of migration, guestworker programs created an especially vulnerable class of labor. Based on a vast array of sources from U.S., Jamaican, and English archives, as well as interviews, No Man's Land tells the history of the American "H2" program, the world's second oldest guestworker program. Since World War II, the H2 program has brought hundreds of thousands of mostly Jamaican men to the United States to do some of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous farmwork for some of its biggest and most powerful agricultural corporations, companies that had the power to import and deport workers from abroad. Jamaican guestworkers occupied a no man's land between nations, protected neither by their home government nor by the United States. The workers complained, went on strike, and sued their employers in class action lawsuits, but their protests had little impact because they could be repatriated and replaced in a matter of hours. No Man's Land puts Jamaican guestworkers' experiences in the context of the global history of this fast-growing and perilous form of labor migration.


American Guestworkers

American Guestworkers

Author: David Craig Griffith

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9780271029498

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The H-2 program, originally based in Florida, is the longest running labor-importation program in the country. Over the course of a quarter-century of research, Griffith studied rural labor processes and their national and international effects. In this book, he examines the socioeconomic effects of the H-2 program on both the areas where the laborers work and the areas they are from, and, taking a uniquely humanitarian stance, he considers the effects of the program on the laborers themselves.


Book Synopsis American Guestworkers by : David Craig Griffith

Download or read book American Guestworkers written by David Craig Griffith and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The H-2 program, originally based in Florida, is the longest running labor-importation program in the country. Over the course of a quarter-century of research, Griffith studied rural labor processes and their national and international effects. In this book, he examines the socioeconomic effects of the H-2 program on both the areas where the laborers work and the areas they are from, and, taking a uniquely humanitarian stance, he considers the effects of the program on the laborers themselves.


No Man's Land

No Man's Land

Author: Cindy Hahamovitch

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-11-17

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0691160155

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From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a state-brokered compromise between employers who wanted foreign workers and those who feared rising numbers of immigrants. Unlike immigrants, guestworkers couldn't settle, bring their families, or become citizens, and they had few rights. Indeed, instead of creating a manageable form of migration, guestworker programs created an especially vulnerable class of labor. Based on a vast array of sources from U.S., Jamaican, and English archives, as well as interviews, No Man's Land tells the history of the American "H2" program, the world's second oldest guestworker program. Since World War II, the H2 program has brought hundreds of thousands of mostly Jamaican men to the United States to do some of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous farmwork for some of its biggest and most powerful agricultural corporations, companies that had the power to import and deport workers from abroad. Jamaican guestworkers occupied a no man's land between nations, protected neither by their home government nor by the United States. The workers complained, went on strike, and sued their employers in class action lawsuits, but their protests had little impact because they could be repatriated and replaced in a matter of hours. No Man's Land puts Jamaican guestworkers' experiences in the context of the global history of this fast-growing and perilous form of labor migration.


Book Synopsis No Man's Land by : Cindy Hahamovitch

Download or read book No Man's Land written by Cindy Hahamovitch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-17 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From South Africa in the nineteenth century to Hong Kong today, nations around the world, including the United States, have turned to guestworker programs to manage migration. These temporary labor recruitment systems represented a state-brokered compromise between employers who wanted foreign workers and those who feared rising numbers of immigrants. Unlike immigrants, guestworkers couldn't settle, bring their families, or become citizens, and they had few rights. Indeed, instead of creating a manageable form of migration, guestworker programs created an especially vulnerable class of labor. Based on a vast array of sources from U.S., Jamaican, and English archives, as well as interviews, No Man's Land tells the history of the American "H2" program, the world's second oldest guestworker program. Since World War II, the H2 program has brought hundreds of thousands of mostly Jamaican men to the United States to do some of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous farmwork for some of its biggest and most powerful agricultural corporations, companies that had the power to import and deport workers from abroad. Jamaican guestworkers occupied a no man's land between nations, protected neither by their home government nor by the United States. The workers complained, went on strike, and sued their employers in class action lawsuits, but their protests had little impact because they could be repatriated and replaced in a matter of hours. No Man's Land puts Jamaican guestworkers' experiences in the context of the global history of this fast-growing and perilous form of labor migration.


Turkish Guest Workers in Germany

Turkish Guest Workers in Germany

Author: Jennifer A. Miller

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1487521928

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Turkish Guest Workers in Germany tells the post-war story of Turkish "guest workers," whom West German employers recruited to fill their depleted ranks. Jennifer A. Miller's unique approach starts in the country of departure rather than the country of arrival and is heavily informed by Turkish-language sources and perspectives. Miller argues that the guest worker program, far from creating a parallel society, involved constant interaction between foreign nationals and Germans. These categories were as fluid as the Cold War borders they crossed. Miller's extensive use of archival research in Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands examines the recruitment?of workers, their travel, initial housing and work engagements, social lives, and involvement in labour and religious movements. She reveals how contrary to popular misconceptions, the West German government attempted to maintain a humane, foreign labour system and the workers themselves made crucial, often defiant, decisions. Turkish Guest Workers in Germany identifies the Turkish guest worker program as a postwar phenomenon that has much to tell us about the development of Muslim minorities in Europe and Turkey's ever-evolving relationship with the European Union.


Book Synopsis Turkish Guest Workers in Germany by : Jennifer A. Miller

Download or read book Turkish Guest Workers in Germany written by Jennifer A. Miller and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turkish Guest Workers in Germany tells the post-war story of Turkish "guest workers," whom West German employers recruited to fill their depleted ranks. Jennifer A. Miller's unique approach starts in the country of departure rather than the country of arrival and is heavily informed by Turkish-language sources and perspectives. Miller argues that the guest worker program, far from creating a parallel society, involved constant interaction between foreign nationals and Germans. These categories were as fluid as the Cold War borders they crossed. Miller's extensive use of archival research in Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands examines the recruitment?of workers, their travel, initial housing and work engagements, social lives, and involvement in labour and religious movements. She reveals how contrary to popular misconceptions, the West German government attempted to maintain a humane, foreign labour system and the workers themselves made crucial, often defiant, decisions. Turkish Guest Workers in Germany identifies the Turkish guest worker program as a postwar phenomenon that has much to tell us about the development of Muslim minorities in Europe and Turkey's ever-evolving relationship with the European Union.


The Big Squeeze

The Big Squeeze

Author: Steven Greenhouse

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0307268632

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Why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? In this fresh, carefully researched book, New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse explores the economic, political, and social trends that are transforming America's workplaces, including the decline of the social contract that created the world's largest middle class and guaranteed job security and good pensions. We meet all kinds of workers—white-collar and blue-collar, high-tech and low-tech, middle-class and low-income—as we see shocking examples of injustice, including employees who are locked in during a hurricane or fired after suffering debilitating, on-the-job injuries. With pragmatic recommendations on what government, business and labor should do to alleviate the economic crunch, The Big Squeeze is a balanced, consistently revealing look at a major American crisis.


Book Synopsis The Big Squeeze by : Steven Greenhouse

Download or read book The Big Squeeze written by Steven Greenhouse and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? In this fresh, carefully researched book, New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse explores the economic, political, and social trends that are transforming America's workplaces, including the decline of the social contract that created the world's largest middle class and guaranteed job security and good pensions. We meet all kinds of workers—white-collar and blue-collar, high-tech and low-tech, middle-class and low-income—as we see shocking examples of injustice, including employees who are locked in during a hurricane or fired after suffering debilitating, on-the-job injuries. With pragmatic recommendations on what government, business and labor should do to alleviate the economic crunch, The Big Squeeze is a balanced, consistently revealing look at a major American crisis.


Labor's Outcasts

Labor's Outcasts

Author: Andrew J. Hazelton

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2022-09-13

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0252053648

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In the mid-twentieth century, corporations consolidated control over agriculture on the backs of Mexican migrant laborers through a guestworker system called the Bracero Program. The National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU) attempted to organize these workers but met with utter indifference from the AFL-CIO. Andrew J. Hazelton examines the NAWU's opposition to the Bracero Program against the backdrop of Mexican migration and the transformation of North American agriculture. His analysis details growers’ abuse of the program to undercut organizing efforts, the NAWU's subsequent mobilization of reformers concerned by those abuses, and grower opposition to any restrictions on worker control. Though the union's organizing efforts failed, it nonetheless created effective strategies for pressuring growers and defending workers’ rights. These strategies contributed to the abandonment of the Bracero Program in 1964 and set the stage for victories by the United Farm Workers and other movements in the years to come.


Book Synopsis Labor's Outcasts by : Andrew J. Hazelton

Download or read book Labor's Outcasts written by Andrew J. Hazelton and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the mid-twentieth century, corporations consolidated control over agriculture on the backs of Mexican migrant laborers through a guestworker system called the Bracero Program. The National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU) attempted to organize these workers but met with utter indifference from the AFL-CIO. Andrew J. Hazelton examines the NAWU's opposition to the Bracero Program against the backdrop of Mexican migration and the transformation of North American agriculture. His analysis details growers’ abuse of the program to undercut organizing efforts, the NAWU's subsequent mobilization of reformers concerned by those abuses, and grower opposition to any restrictions on worker control. Though the union's organizing efforts failed, it nonetheless created effective strategies for pressuring growers and defending workers’ rights. These strategies contributed to the abandonment of the Bracero Program in 1964 and set the stage for victories by the United Farm Workers and other movements in the years to come.


Green Carrot - America's Work Visa Crisis

Green Carrot - America's Work Visa Crisis

Author: Rajiv Dabhadkar

Publisher: American Work Permit

Published:

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13:

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The book is dedicated to the real life issues in the process of human migration. It discusses people movement that is tied to immigration and trade policy, where workers are treated as a commodity and is not just about selling a product or a service. It is about finding the future. It explores the future of the workers, the corporations and the society at large.The primary objective however is in finding the future. Not just a future in general, but specific futures for the individuals under the care of policies that govern people movement. The focus is the future in the sense that it makes a prediction about where the future lies and then takes specific steps to make that future happen. That is where the subject of human migration comes in. The globalized political and economic system creates illegality by displacing people and then denying the workers rights and equality as they have to do what they have to do in order to survive. Globalization forces people into migration into countries where the ideas of divide and rule have been codified as a legal justification for the injustices. Inequality therefore is re-created and re introduced by a global economic system. In the realm of social reality - this social inequality creates a caste system, where one class of workers is pitted against the other for personal gain. Where when one side of the coin gets tainted, the other side shines brightly, putting the society at large in a conundrum. This book examines the function of social inequality in a modern world of high-tech guest workers and India’s increasing dependence on exporting people to the labor pool in the global North. This book is titled Green Carrot - America’s Work Visa Crisis in recognition of this reality. While Indian workers serving with employers in the United States has been used as a case study, it aims to drive home a point - Should the human migration exports rest only on the economic needs or should they be more focused on the human rights of its workers?Through the book an attempt is made to explore the politics of the debate over immigration and trade policies between India and the United States. The book examines closely the cultural factors associated with the brokerage of intellectual capital and rights to intellectual property - two distinct yet, vulnerable areas in the political debate on immigration reform. The book examines body shopping as a business model that promotes the brokerage of intellectual capital and ends with the need for innovation, bringing focus on generating intellectual property. The book begins with examining what it means to be an indentured guest worker in labor bondage with a foreign employer - how immigration status is used to keep people vulnerable, to criminalize them and punish them when they try to improve their conditions. The narrative travels to examine how the visa status is used to control the movement of its foreign employee and how the brokerage of intellectual capital allows subjugation for personal gain and its consequences on family life. The book traces back in history to explore America’s dependence on foreign labor and examines how the present day system of body shopping in fact creates an economic system that benefit from the changes causing displacement, and also benefits from the labor displacement produces, especially those on the foreign work visas. It traces the development of the employer lobby set up to win expansion of the work visa programs. How the immigration policies have all but been about low salaries for foreign workers, excluding the local workers from competing for jobs thus dividing the work forces Finally the book suggests some alternatives, always the hardest part in the immigration debate. It concentrates on some of the most progressive ideas, which have been put forward by immigration and human rights activists.


Book Synopsis Green Carrot - America's Work Visa Crisis by : Rajiv Dabhadkar

Download or read book Green Carrot - America's Work Visa Crisis written by Rajiv Dabhadkar and published by American Work Permit. This book was released on with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is dedicated to the real life issues in the process of human migration. It discusses people movement that is tied to immigration and trade policy, where workers are treated as a commodity and is not just about selling a product or a service. It is about finding the future. It explores the future of the workers, the corporations and the society at large.The primary objective however is in finding the future. Not just a future in general, but specific futures for the individuals under the care of policies that govern people movement. The focus is the future in the sense that it makes a prediction about where the future lies and then takes specific steps to make that future happen. That is where the subject of human migration comes in. The globalized political and economic system creates illegality by displacing people and then denying the workers rights and equality as they have to do what they have to do in order to survive. Globalization forces people into migration into countries where the ideas of divide and rule have been codified as a legal justification for the injustices. Inequality therefore is re-created and re introduced by a global economic system. In the realm of social reality - this social inequality creates a caste system, where one class of workers is pitted against the other for personal gain. Where when one side of the coin gets tainted, the other side shines brightly, putting the society at large in a conundrum. This book examines the function of social inequality in a modern world of high-tech guest workers and India’s increasing dependence on exporting people to the labor pool in the global North. This book is titled Green Carrot - America’s Work Visa Crisis in recognition of this reality. While Indian workers serving with employers in the United States has been used as a case study, it aims to drive home a point - Should the human migration exports rest only on the economic needs or should they be more focused on the human rights of its workers?Through the book an attempt is made to explore the politics of the debate over immigration and trade policies between India and the United States. The book examines closely the cultural factors associated with the brokerage of intellectual capital and rights to intellectual property - two distinct yet, vulnerable areas in the political debate on immigration reform. The book examines body shopping as a business model that promotes the brokerage of intellectual capital and ends with the need for innovation, bringing focus on generating intellectual property. The book begins with examining what it means to be an indentured guest worker in labor bondage with a foreign employer - how immigration status is used to keep people vulnerable, to criminalize them and punish them when they try to improve their conditions. The narrative travels to examine how the visa status is used to control the movement of its foreign employee and how the brokerage of intellectual capital allows subjugation for personal gain and its consequences on family life. The book traces back in history to explore America’s dependence on foreign labor and examines how the present day system of body shopping in fact creates an economic system that benefit from the changes causing displacement, and also benefits from the labor displacement produces, especially those on the foreign work visas. It traces the development of the employer lobby set up to win expansion of the work visa programs. How the immigration policies have all but been about low salaries for foreign workers, excluding the local workers from competing for jobs thus dividing the work forces Finally the book suggests some alternatives, always the hardest part in the immigration debate. It concentrates on some of the most progressive ideas, which have been put forward by immigration and human rights activists.