Three suits over subcontracted janitor labor violations

The Boston Globe reports a suit dealing janitors and kitchen staff working for a leading Boston-area healthcare organization, Cambridge Health Alliance, while technically employed by an outsourcing company, Clean Link. Last year two major settlements over janitorial services were made, one involving Walmart.
The blog Contingent Law summarizes this $22 million settlement and a Walmart settlement as follows:
Wal-Mart Agrees to $11 Million Settlement in Illegal Foreign Janitors’ Class Action Lawsuit Holding Wal-Mart Liable for Its Contract Janitorial Firms’ Violations of Federal Immigration and Labor Laws. (Zavala et.al. v. Walmart Stores, Inc. , U.S. D.Ct. D. N.J.) settled March 18, 2005). The illegal immigrant janitors were employed by Wal-Mart’s contract janitorial services companies. Wal-Mart was liable as a joint employer with 12 contract janitorial services firms. The janitorial firms were charged with criminal violations and were fined $4 million.
$22 Million Settlement for 2,000 Illegal Immigrant Contract Janitors in Federal Class Action Lawsuit Charging National Supermarkets and their Subcontractor Cleaning Companies with FLSA Violations. (Florex v. Albertson’s. et. al. , U.S. D.Ct., C.D., Cal. Jan 26, 2005)
The Globe article goes on:

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Massachusetts Governor wants state police to round up illegal immigrants

Governor Mitt Romney is intent on using state police to round up illegal immigrants. This initiative as the state’s Attorney General scuffed at the idea of deploying state law enforcement resources to capture illegals. But since the AG’s remarks, the Boston Globe ran a story that many undocumented workers are engaged on state – financed construction projects.
Last year, Romney’s Lt Governor opposed a law to give illegal immigrant children in-state tuition at state colleges, saying, Marie Antoinette-fashion, that they should apply to private schools.

Per the Boston Globe
:
Governor Mitt Romney is seeking an agreement with federal authorities that would allow Massachusetts state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants for being in the country illegally. Under the agreement Romney is seeking, troopers would have greatly expanded powers: They could check an immigrant’s legal status during routine patrols such as during a traffic stop and decide whether the immigrant should be held. Federal immigration authorities would provide the troopers with 4 1/2 weeks of training in immigration laws and procedures, civil rights, and avoiding racial profiling.
If the proposal is approved, Massachusetts would join a handful of states and localities that have entered into such pacts since they were first authorized in 1996. That list includes Florida, Alabama, and a few counties in California and North Carolina, where a limited number of officers have been trained to enforce immigration laws.

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Second report on breakdown of worker safety in Katrina cleanup

Two study teams have told me that workers compensation coverage has pretty much disappeared for the estimated 5,000 undocumented workers engaged in the Katrina cleanup. I have already posted about the study conducted by Tulane University and UC Berkeley. I spoke with Phuong Pham, a professor at Tulane and one of the leaders of that team. She told me she was not aware of any injuries being treated within the workers comp system. The second study was supported by the
NDLON – the National Day Labor Organizing Network — and UCLA, and the main researcher was Tomas Aguilar. He told me the same thing.

Serious breakdown in workers comp for Katrina cleanup

I have been talking with the authors of two studies of immigrant workers engaged in the Katrina cleanup. There are an estimated 10,000 immigrant workers of whom half may be undocumented. Both researchers report that very, very few of their work injuries are handled through the workers comp system. Instead, free care is used. This is a very serious problem. I expect to write more on it as more information becomes available. I have already posted on the published study done by Tulane and UC Berkeley researchers.

Republican Senator: REAL ID is a real stinker

Senator John Sununu represents NH, one of the states intending to be an early implementor of the REAL ID program — creating a national standard of high tech driver’s licenses. He roundly criticized the program in a recent column in the 5/17 Manchester Union Leader (no link available). “The flaws of REAL ID are fundamental and are slowly being realized by observers across the country.” Here it is, somewhat excerpted. I have posted on it in the past.
WHEN THE 9/11 Commission released its report nearly two years ago, the commissioners made several recommendations which they believed would, if implemented, make us safer. One such recommendation stated, “The federal government should set standards for the issuance of . . . sources of identification, such as drivers’ licenses.”

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Locations of worker centers in U.S.

Janice Fine’s Worker Centers: Organizing communities at the Edge of the Dream includes contact information for 137 worker centers, 122 of which are expressly focused on serving immigrant workers. their distribution by state. A online map of the country with these centers can be found here.
AZ – 3
AR – 1
CA – 29
CO – 1
DC – 1
FL – 6
IL – 8
IN – 2
ME – 1
MA – 5
MI – 1
MN – 3
MS -2
MT – 1
NE – 1
NJ – 5
NV – 1
NY – 24
NC – 7
OH – 3
OR – 4
PA – 3
RI – 1
SC – 1
TX – 6
UT – 1
VT – 1
VA – 4
WA – 5
WI – 4

Fake IDs among Massachusetts construction workers

The Boston Globe ran a story on Sunday (no link available) about the ways in which undocumented workers become workers at construction worksites. Article by By Jonathan Saltzman and Yvonne Abraham, June 18, 2006:
A Globe analysis of nine recent public works projects — from dormitory construction at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth to the building of the new Middlesex County Jail — revealed that of 242 workers on weekly payroll lists, more than a third appeared to lack legitimate Social Security numbers. On one of the payrolls reviewed, for masonry work on the UMass dormitory project, nearly two-thirds of the contractor’s 87 workers had bogus or questionable Social Security numbers.
The numbers used by the workers in many cases appeared obviously fraudulent. One laborer who helped build the new jail in Billerica submitted a number that should have immediately raised eyebrows: 666-66-6666. Some numbers belonged to people who were long-deceased, the Globe found. Others were matched to people who live out of state and had no idea their numbers had been appropriated.
The findings, though a small snapshot of the vast number of public projects undertaken throughout the state, suggest how the use of undocumented workers has extended into almost every corner of the economy. Republicans in Massachusetts trumpeted plans last month to stiffen fines on companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, which is illegal under state law. But there is no requirement that employers, including those receiving public funds, demonstrate that their workers are legal, and undocumented workers employed on the projects say that contractors are all too happy to look the other way.

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George Will on short vs long term politics on immigration

Washington Post columnist George Will writes today about the Republicans’ temptation to attack Democrats for the Senate bill on immigration reform, calling it an amnesty sell-out. This attack we may see more of despite the fact that 33 Republican senators voted for the bill. Will notes that short term goals may yield long term losses:

Republicans very much want to pass an immigration bill as proof their party can govern. For that reason, there is no reason to expect Senate Democrats to compromise by passing something like the House bill. Nothing very different from it has any chance of being accepted by the House. So, safely assuming that the House-Senate conference fails to produce a compromise acceptable to both houses, when Congress returns to Washington after the Labor Day recess, the House may again pass essentially what it passed in December, just to enable Republicans to campaign on the basis of a clear and recent stance against exactly what Santorum’s ad stands against.

The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon — the next 4 1/2 months.