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Wage Cut Looms For Immigration Processors

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By JULIA PRESTON, The New York Times

Published: December 2, 2007

Workers who help process millions of visa and citizenship applications for a federal immigration agency are getting pay reductions just as the agency is facing an enormous surge in those applications.

The workers whose wage rate will be cut are contract employees in document processing centers in St. Albans, Vt., and Laguna Niguel, Calif., that are part of Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for deciding visa applications and citizenship petitions. About 280 of approximately 1,000 contract workers in the two centers will receive lower wages after a new contractor, Stanley Inc. of Arlington, Va., takes over on Monday.
Immigration officials said the agency granted a contract to Stanley, after competitive bidding last year, to manage mailroom and data entry work at the two centers in an effort to speed handling of the vast paperwork of the applications.

"The goal is to try to get this work done as efficiently as possible," said Shawn Saucier, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services. He said the wage dispute was between the contractor and the employees and did not involve the agency.

Dozens of workers have protested the pay cuts to Vermont and California lawmakers. During the past two weeks, workers picketed in front of the federal office building in Laguna Niguel.

"If you're trying to get people motivated to deal with a huge backlog, the last thing you would do is slash pay," said independent U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont. "It just creates more turnover, more discontent and more demoralization."

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