SNIP

>There is not a single industry, including agriculture, in which a large majority of workers are not legal citizens.

I know that the majority of workers in the poultry and meat industry in the U.S. certainly are. Soon that will be case in the home construction industry as well (if it is not already). I guess you don't have a Purdue chicken plant near you?

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/un-sub1005/


Immigrant workers make up the majority of the labor force in the U.S. meat and poultry industry. Along with immigrant counterparts in the agricultural sector, they literally feed the people of the United States. Despite this central role in U.S. economic life, immigrant workers are not accorded the rights, recognition and respect they deserve for their contributions. Instead of integration into the host society with full application of labor rights and labor standards, they are marginalized in a huge underclass laboring in substandard employment conditions.

This submission describes conditions of immigrant workers in the U.S. meat and poultry industry. Human Rights Watch asks the Commission’s Committee on Migrant Workers to add its voice to those of human rights advocates in the United States seeking full protection of the rights of workers in this industry

Violations of immigrant workers’ rights arise at a fault line in United States human rights and labor rights policy. On the edge of this fault, millions of fearful, vulnerable non-citizens work in our nation’s most dangerous, dirty and demanding conditions. Abuses such as failure to prevent serious workplace injury and illness, denial of compensation to injured workers, interference with workers’ freedom of association, are all directly linked to the vulnerable immigration status of most workers in the meat and poultry industry and the willingness of employers to take advantage of that vulnerability. Although international human rights law mandates that all workers have basic rights that should be protected, including undocumented as well as documented workers, immigrant workers find that while their work is accepted, their rights are not.


You may also want to look at:

http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=206