Our View - Monday

Labor pains

Immigration move will victimize innocent workers

Labor Day was begun at the instigation of labor unions in the 1860s as a way to celebrate the “working man” and demonstrate the “esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.” As membership in unions has waned (except, interestingly, government employee unions), the day has increasingly become, unofficially, the Last Great Barbecue of Summer. Every so often someone will try to reshape the spirit of the day by reminding us that all work, whether physical, intellectual or entrepreneurial, is worthy of respect and appreciation.

This year, however, several labor and business organizations are using Labor Day to address a work-related issue that is current and relevant — confused plans for dealing with illegal immigrants.

Congress failed to pass either a comprehensive or an enforcement-focused immigration package this year. So President Bush has announced a plan to have the government notify employers about workers who are using Social Security number that differ from government records. If employers don’t act within 90 days, either to clarify the records or fire the workers, they would face fines and possible criminal prosecution.

Within a few months, as many as 140,000 employers are expected to receive letters regarding more than 8 million workers. Presumably a large number of illegal workers will be summarily dismissed.

That might sound like a beginning to a solution to the problem of millions of immigrants being in this country illegally. However, as Terence O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union and Stephen Sandherr, CEO of Associated General Contractors, put it in a jointly written op-ed this week: “While these letters will force undocumented workers to leave jobs . . . they will not feel compelled to leave the country. Nor will national security be strengthened, as the undocumented will not come forward and be identified. Rather, many workers already in the shadows of our economy will begin a cycle of musical chairs, moving from employer to employer until the next no-match letter arrives.” The construction industry, already shaky in the wake of the mortgage meltdown, is likely to be hit hard.

The Social Security Administration’s inspector general reported last year that the Social Security database used to identify suspicious numbers contains erroneous records on 17.8 million people, including 12.7 million native-born U.S. citizens. Thus millions of innocent people could find themselves in a bureaucratic maelstrom, facing the almost infinitely frustrating prospect of trying to get the government to correct a mistake.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO seldom agree in public, but both are concerned about this proposed policy. They want the administration to postpone it for six months, think through the implications, and come up with something better. That’s a good idea.

Denver voters don’t need baby sitters

Politicians often have to decide where the line is between personal choices and public policy. Denver’s Mayor John Hickenlooper and the rest of the City Council wrestled with that issue last month as they considered a petition that asks that enforcement of marijuana possession laws be the Police Department’s lowest priority.

Two years ago, Denver voters passed an ordinance that decriminalized adult possession of small amounts of marijuana. That didn’t change state or federal laws against possession, so the police continued to enforce those laws. Now, Citizens for a Safer Denver, the organization behind the earlier initiative, is trying to get the city to follow the will of the voters. The group gathered enough petition signatures to force the city to take action on the issue. According to the city charter, the council had to review the initiative and either adopt it or send it to the voters. It opted for the latter.

Hickenlooper’s spokeswoman, Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, noted, “Sending it to voters doesn’t imply that they endorse it.” That’s fine; the voters don’t have to be led around like schoolchildren. They’re capable of making up their own minds.

One thing we found interesting was the reaction of council members to a newspaper’s question regarding their own past marijuana use. According to an Associated Press report, the Denver Daily News asked the mayor and council members whether they had used the drug. Hickenlooper and four council members admitted prior use, and three said they hadn’t. Six others refused to answer. As a group, the council indicated that members’ experiences had nothing to do with public policy. That’s where they’re wrong.

Hickenlooper said, “I made personal choices when I was younger that I neither support nor condone for others and certainly wouldn’t encourage through public policy.” But no one is asking him to encourage anything. Denver’s marijuana possession law allows adults to make choices about an issue that shouldn’t be any concern of the government. The initiative simply asks that others be allowed to have the same choices Hickenlooper had, without fear of arrest.

Council member Marcia Johnson admitted using pot, but says she voted against the earlier measure “because I’m thinking of the message to little children.” What kind of message does it send to “little children” that the government doesn’t believe adults can make decisions about their own lives?

The problem with prohibition laws is that they criminalize behavior that should be a matter of personal choice. In doing so, they take away rights the law is supposed to protect. As Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, said, “If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.”