( CNN ) -- Imagine that you have made it to the United States from a country where economic opportunities are absent . You 've found work in a laundry , a restaurant kitchen , a nursing home , or on a construction site . The pay is low by U.S. standards , but you save enough to send some every month to your family back home . Every day you put up with hazards and harassment , knowing that if you raise your voice in protest you risk , not only getting fired , but getting reported and deported . Some weeks you do n't get paid at all , but you keep your mouth shut and live with the abuse . Hundreds of thousands of immigrant families across the country live this each day . Now , as Congress considers sweeping changes to a broken immigration system , we must press the case for a more humane approach to immigration -- and protections for all workers , immigrant and native-born alike . International Workers ' Day , or May Day , started in 1887 as a day for workers to press their demands for an eight-hour work day . It commemorated a violent suppression of a Chicago labor rally the year before . Immigrants , their advocates and allies took the holiday observed on the first of May to another level in 2006 , when they connected workers ' rights to the need for repairs to a broken immigration system . On this May 1 , the American Friends Service Committee will join them in cities from Concord , New Hampshire , to San Diego , California . It 's not only workers without the right papers who suffer ; when employers can get away with exploitation , the whole workforce suffers and deplorable conditions ripple through the entire labor market . Immigration reform legislation offers the prospect of ending such exploitation , by providing a path to citizenship for qualifying individuals and a provisional legal status along the way . This would enable workers to stand up for their rights without fear of deportation simply for being an unauthorized worker . That could be one of the outcomes of passing the `` Border Security , Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act , '' the official name of the massive immigration bill now pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee . For future immigrants , the creation of a new visa category , the W visa , would provide opportunities for low-skilled workers to move from one employer to another without losing the authorization to work . This category would ensure that pay levels are set between minimum wage and medium wage for the particular job , and also would require that labor recruiters be registered and regulated . Additionally , holders of `` W '' visas would be able to seek Legal Permanent Residency for themselves and their immediate family members . The bill also would create a `` blue card , '' an improvement for agricultural workers . Those who qualify for these visas would be offered a faster track to permanent residency status . The bill is not without problems , such as the provision that mandates that all employers , public and private , use the federal E-Verify system , which checks workers ' immigration status . This ties access to jobs to a massive data-management system with a long history of errors and abuses . Making participation in this flawed system obligatory as a condition for a immigration bill is misguided and wrong . About 8 million of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S are workers . They want what workers everywhere want : safe working conditions , fair wages , and protection from abuse . The American Friends Service Committee sees that as a reasonable desire , consistent with a belief that all work should confer dignity on workers , employers , and consumers . As we say in our policy paper , `` A New Path Toward Humane Immigration Policy , '' all workers are entitled to humane polices that protect their labor and employment rights . This year we must take the opportunity to set a long-sought pathway to protection for workers ' and immigrants ' rights -- so that May Day 2014 can be a day to celebrate the progress we have made together . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers .
Writers : On May Day , we celebrate workers and press for fair , humane conditions . They say immigration reform must include labor protections for all working in U.S . Writers : We are immigrants ourselves! They say provisions like W visa give a path to citizenship and ability to work legally .