Posted on 12/23/2011 4:12:14 PM PST by moonshinner_09
This is not going to be a Merry Christmas for many of the workers at Pacific Steel.
After a recent crackdown by the Department of Homeland Security, 200 workers who could not provide a valid social security number are being laid off.
Those let go from the third largest foundry in the United States include many highly skilled workers who have been at the company for decades.
“It’s very sad,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Jewel from the firm Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners. “The employees who are being terminated now have the most seniority. Many have been there 20 to 30 years. They have kids in the public school. They pay taxes. They are fully invested in American life. It’s been a really wrenching situation – obviously for the workers – but also for the company.”
In February, Pacific Steel, which was founded in Berkeley in 1934 by the Genger family and is still family-owned, got a request by ICE, the US Immigration and Customs Authority, an agency within Homeland Security, to examine I-9 documents, said Jewel. The department came back and reported that the social security numbers of 200 of the company’s 600 workers didn’t match up.
The employees were given a chance to provide new documentation to prove they were legally working in the US. Only a few were able to do that, said Jewel. Pacific Steel has been doing rolling layoffs, keeping those with the most seniority working the longest. The last workers will be let go in January, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at berkeleyside.com ...
A company that size would have been notified by the SSA on an annual basis that the SSN's they had been reporting income under were not valid......Heads need to roll.
With 200 illegals that seems like a pattern of law breaking. The CEO and senior managers should be in jail and RICO statutes should be used to confiscate the business from the owners.
Do that a few times and businesses will start getting a little more thorough in their employment vetting procedures.
So these are the poster people for Newt’s lunatic amnesty scheme.
Fire them and stop the welfare money. They will leave.
Amnesty must be stopped
Feliz Navidad, pindejos! Now go back to Mexico.
Illegals, period.
Their website says steel castings.
“”A company that size would have been notified by the SSA on an annual basis that the SSN’s they had been reporting income under were not valid......Heads need to roll.””
It wouldn’t matter what size the company was, they would always have gotten notice that SS #’s didn’t match with names reported. In CA, I believe I remember that the Franchise Tax Board notified the employer also. I worked for a CPA there and saw these notices come in on a regular basis. This company had to go out of their way to ignore the notices. The notices clearly stated that the problem shouldn’t result in dismissal of the employee but that all care should be taken to straighten out the records.
In some cases, the employees were using the SS# of friends and YES, the friend was getting the benefit of the earnings reported under that number - UNLESS - SSA holds those reported earnings in a suspense file somewhere until it was been cleared up! I’ve always wondered about that.
20 or 30 extra high payin' years of SS input?
It doesn't exactly work that way.
The other day, I was in my local Sheriff's office. I am a recent victim of identity theft, and was there to pick up their report of my case. (Different situation, someone is using my name, address, and driver's license number to cash counterfeit checks around town).
While I was there, a guy was filing his own complaint. Seems he started getting crap from the IRS for not paying his taxes, but he wasn't behind on them. When he checked into it, he found out that someone 1400 miles away had been using his social security number on their job, and he couldn't reason with the IRS that it wasn't him, so he came in to file the report.
So I guess you could get the credit towards your SS input for the thief's income and SS deductions, as long as you wanted to pay the thief's income taxes, also.
Wasn't that the premise of the article? The fired 200 didn't have valid S/S numbers.
Where do you think the withholding and payroll taxes went? Or maybe they were paid under the table.
Not reporting income solves that problem.
Boo bloody whinging hoo. Here between the tips of My thumb and pinky finger I have the worlds smallest violin playing 'I feel for you'. *snort*
Once, just ONCE, I would like to see a reporter write something like: 'a group of criminals who have operated with impunity for decades in this country have been found out and their drain upon society finally curtailed', instead of the Oh-Woe-Is-Them touchy-feely pablum that always frames such newsprinting.
http://www.pacificsteel.com/get_started.html
MEET THE PACIFIC STEEL TEAM
Pacific Steel employs several hundred workers who are members of the Glaziers, Molders, and Plasterers (GMP) Union Local 164B.
Our workers represent nearly 30 different nationalities and are bilingual in languages including Spanish, Mandarin, and German. We celebrate this diversity and believe that all employees should have the chance to be promoted to meet their career goals. We offer free English instruction to interested employees and opportunities to move up the ranks as they master multiple foundry jobs as part of our promise to help our employees succeed. We also maintain strict health and safety guidelines to make sure our employees are protected.
If they were “fully invested in American life” then why didn’t they become citizens? I can’t believe they were here 20-30 years and never even tried....
Hell no! We either enforce our laws or we don’t. As it is we enforce them capriciously, so that the entire Manson gang can enjoy its Ph.D. studies behind bars and be up for parole every couple of years, and be granted it once Sharon Tate’s relatives pass away, and the same with these workers who’ve been here for 20, 30 years and now, NOW? why now? are getting the boot, because our criminal justice system is driven by nothing more than petty politics.
If you’ve been in a country for 30 years, obviously you were planning on staying.
They should have started the ball rolling on acquiring citizenship.
Betcha unions pressured Homeland Security to take action
It’s rumored raids are used at meat packing plants to rid themselves of pesky employees.
Could the union organizers be using raids to rid these shops of union resistance ?
Call the whaaaambulance!
It’s not a steel mill, it’s a foundry.
Kaiser Steel is in Fontana California but they have shut down their mining and smelter and only roll pig iron from Australia.
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