IPA

Edmund Rice International (ERI), an advocacy non-governmental organisation (NGO), supported and sponsored by the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers, has had a significant success with the United States government. In 2010, ERI submitted a report on the issue of migrant workers in the United States whose conditions of employment were such that they amounted to exploitation.

Some migrant workers, mainly from across the border in Mexico, are admitted to the USA under a  US Department of Labour programme called the H-2B programme. The H-2B non-immigrant program permits employers to hire foreign workers to come temporarily to the US and perform temporary non-agricultural services or labour on a one-time, seasonal, peak-load or intermittent basis.

Working with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Brother Kevin Cawley, the ERI representative in New York, drafted a lengthy report which formed the basis of a submission under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States which took place in 2010 in Geneva. The report advocated changes to the H-2B programme which would extend to migrant workers the same legal and other social protections afforded to regular US workers.

This past week the USA Department of Labour has, in fact, conceded that the current operation of the H-2B programme could lead to the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers. It has put into effect the legal changes recommended by ERI and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These changes have been documented into a recent New York Times report available here.

All who were involved in the preparation of the submission and in the accompanying lobbying strategy deserve our expressions of appreciation. Their success augurs well for the upcoming UK UPR and ERI’s involvement with it. Very soon the Salford organisations who have been involved in developing the UPR submission will begin the lobbying process in Geneva. Let’s hope they can look forward to a similar successful outcome to their efforts.

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