Business and labor groups have finally come to an agreement over a contentious measure in the Senate bipartisan immigration reform bill.
Until now, a comprehensive bill has been delayed over disagreements about a guest worker program. Business leaders want to be able to bring in low-skilled labor from overseas, saying they cannot find enough workers with the requisite abilities in the United States.
While labor groups have agreed to 200,000 of these news workers, they insisted those workers be paid a higher wage than American workers, to prevent incentivizing foreign labor. For obvious reasons, business groups want to be able to pay guest workers as little as possible, and unions are fearful that would put too many American workers out of work.
The new compromise requires business to pay guest workers the higher rate of either the local prevailing wage or the actual wage. Both values are pegged to a combination of reported earnings in an area, dependent upon job requirements and experience. Businesses prefer to pay wages based on this fluctuating amount, rather than a specific dollar amount set by the state or federal government.
While this hurdle has been cleared, the Senate bill is still not ready to be sent to the Judiciary Committee for review. The Senate is on recess for the Easter holiday, so final negotiations will not be able to take place until they return. In the meantime, senators from both parties are continuing to work on the deal from their respective states.
They have already agreed to provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, though applicants will need to pay back taxes as well as a heft fine, learn English and wait for the backlog of current applicants to be cleared.
In addition, that measure is dependent on an increase in border security. While Republicans had been for increasing personnel and funds for border security, Democrats now seem to be on board, after a bipartisan group observed a woman scaling the border fence in Arizona earlier this week.
President Obama is pushing for a bill as soon as possible, and today's agreement means the Senate is one step closer to delivering.