Push the illegals out, at the point of a bayonet if necessary...
Posted on 04/07/2007 7:28:53 AM PDT by flying Elvis
Judge Harold L. Murphy is expected to decide Monday if an emergency hearing is needed in the case
An emergency hearing has been requested to determine if Mohawk Industries tampered with potential witnesses in a federal lawsuit.
The Calhoun-based carpet manufacturer is accused of “widespread employment of illegal workers” in order to drive down wages and workers compensation claims at their Northwest Georgia plants.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Rome in 2004 by a group of employees.
Now, as the case comes closer to trial, one former employee and one current employee have stepped forward saying they have been subject to intimidation and threats aimed at stopping them from testifying in the case.
Presiding judge Harold L. Murphy is expected to decide Monday if an emergency hearing is needed to address the claims, according to court officials.
Norman Carpenter, the former shift supervisor, filed his own lawsuit against Mohawk last month. He claims he was fired to stop him from testifying. Carpenter alleges Nov 28, 2006, he sent an e-mail to Becky Hale, a Mohawk Human Resources (HR) official, reporting that 90 percent of Mohawk’s temporary workers were not authorized to work in the United States.
Eight days later Carpenter was fired for “immigration crimes,” a charge he denies.
Current Mohawk employee Christina Martinez claims HR officials and her direct supervisor told her she would be fired if she enquired about workers’ legal status or read articles about the cases. In a brief filed Friday she claims this intimidation of her and other workers continues.
“I now am sure that I will be terminated if I share my knowledge about the illegal aliens at Mohawk,” Martinez states in conclusion of her declaration to the court.
If Murphy orders a hearing, Martinez and Carpenter are likely to testify.
Representatives from Mohawk have declined to comment about the case.
Url to pdf of Norman Carpenter's lawsuit: http://www1.romenews-tribune.com/Files/Documents/Mohawk.pdf
This is one of the few times that I have been surprised at freepers not figuring out what a case is truly about. You guys are way off base.
Mohawk hired a 3rd party to hire workers willing to work in their mills in small towns in Ga. All workers presented Mohawk with proper documentation which by law large companies are not allowed to question if they look legal, nor are they allow to question their race their religion etc. They can just check references and past work(supposedly done through the 3rd party I guess).
The only thing different Mohawk could have done is gone people searching for themselves (most large companies hire out for this) and done the reference checks themselves.
These people were willing to work for low wages (minimum or above again within the law, keeping the mills here instead of a 3rd world) and Mohawk was present with proper documentation that by law they could not question.
The Ricco question is whether they were displaced people in the community who would do the job (blacks who probably wanted union) in order to search around for people willing to come into the community to work to such low wages(blacks not willing to work for such a wage and use to be the major work force in the mills in Dalton, at least that was what the work force was like at the chicken plant there 15 years ago that now has a mostly Mexican work force I do not know what the work force looked like in the carpet mills 15 years ago but I could ask, though I know it was not Hispanic.).
So we have a choice do we let these very few manufacturs who have stuck it out here in America find people who are willing to work cheap and stay or do we run then out and overseas like the rest. It really is very simple
Sent you private reply
Talk to the HR of on of these major manufacturers still left in this country and ask him if he is allowed to check the validity of the papers given to him or if he is terrified of the lawsuits that would follow if he did. This is no joke to these people.
They need cheap labor and if the person has papers and you are not allowed to check them then you should be allowed to hire them. Otherwise fix the law fix the problem.
Keep them here? At what cost? Gangs, murder, rape, theft? Twenty years ago, most of the workers in the mills were American citizens. The chicken plants “illegalized” prior to that. Zartic was using illegals early in the 1980s. Look at the crime statitistics of Dalton circa 1980 and compare it to today. I used to do business in the region, and was friends with many illegals, so much so, that they opened up to me and told me about what happens when they are injured on the job, or dare to complain about unsafe working conditions, or anything. They are given the boot. The mills like them because they are pliant and cheap.
As for the excuse of a third party being responsible in the first 100 years of the textile industries existence in north Georgia, companies did not have to contract third parties to do the hiring for them. Blaming it on blacks being unwilling to work and being for unions, has typically been the cry of unscrupulous businessmen who wanted to keep white workers pliant.
They blasted well know the illegals are there. They are not innocent victims, they just want cheap labor. I ahe read up on this case and I hope and pray the workers win and the penalties both to the company oand hopefully it’s officers will be high.
“Again, I see NO difference between the zealots on the immigration issue and leftists. They see a desired goal and will use ANYTHING (including the complete ruination of all freedoms) to get what they want.”
You’re a riot.
“zealots” use anything?
What...like the law?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
How dare we uphold the law
HAHAHAHAH
“They hired a third party to find workers for them.”
Legally, that’s no excuse. Employers are obligated BY LAW to know that those they’ve hired are here LEGALLY. Unfortunately,their greed wins out.
True, but the unions are also ‘encouraging’ illegal immigration for financial gain and should be prosecuted under the same RICO laws as Mohawk.
Illegal aliens who are permitted to join labor unions are not illegal aliens being paid cash ‘under the table’. Therefore, they have provided both the employer and the union with illegal documentation...stolen or fraudulent SS numbers.
No they wont go home
They get all those lovely government handouts that Americans cant get
Dalton mills pay great People from TN commute/carpool the 30 odd miles to Dalton to work there
20 years ago Dalton GA had a bad illegal alien problem and Americans were complaining then
I dont mean complaining about nothing
I mean they had guenuine gripes about the illegal aliens taking jobs (20 years ago)
I've been living in Dalton for fifty one years and don't recall blacks ever being "the major workforce in the mills in Dalton". They were, in the poultry plant, Conagra (now Pilgrim's Pride), up until, I'd say, twenty years ago when the Latinos filled the plant. The mills had a few black Americans but the majority of the work force was white Americans, many driving in from Alabama and Tennessee.
Conagra was the first to bring large numbers of Latinos in. Over fifteen years ago I worked with a former comptroller for Conagra who told me of Conagra's recruiting efforts in Mexico. Later, the carpet mills caught on and started running ads in papers in Mexico and put up billboards. The carpet mills have been covered up with illegals for more than 15 years.
What I've been told about the suit with Mohawk is that this got started because Mohawk laid off American workers, due to lack of work, and within days replaced them with illegals.
I'm sickened by this mess caused by our government. They've passed rules and regulations on American companies and told them to go out and compete with countries, like China, with no regulations. The government creates a system preventing Americans from working, then says we won't work. I can understand business owners wanting to make money, but I'm not willing to give up what my forefathers died for so they can live the good life.
Some of you people are so blinded by your hatred on this issue that you will believe any ridiculous charge, accept any loss of freedom, welcome any attack on business, and gladly surrender to a police state (THAT is the only way we can round em up and expel them) just so you won't have to put up with hearing some contractor speak spanish.
America got a yellow tinge in the 1890s, when the percentage of foreigners hit 14.9 per cent (yeah, that is right, almost 3 percentage points HIGHER than the highest illegal estimates today). America got a black tinge in the early 1800s. America got an Irish brogue in the late 1800s and an Italian oily skin look a little later. We survived, and they eventually changed the look and feel of the country.
You people can go down wailing about it or you can look to accomodate and help build concepts of freedom justice and independence to a people group who have known none of that their whole lives. Swapping cups of venom among yourselves on Free Republic is just going to confirm your morphing into the isolated, bitter, bilious clique of fringe haters who push a group NOT already leftists into the arms of those who seek only to use them to gain power. These people are largely hard workers, independent, and although they will take a handout, NOT looking for them. They ARE going to be the largest minority of voters here in the next few years (they are already the largest minority), and if you think this kind of hateful exclusionary crap is going to do you good in the long run, you are sadly sadly mistakened.
Finally, PLEASE do not give me the tired old cant of "You just want to destroy our way of life and reward lawbreakers." I do not. I think the fed has done a horrific job on its constituional duty "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." I would love to see the fed take an intelligent approach to ingress/egress of proximate non-citizens and actually admit aliens appropriate to our 4.4% unemployment rate in a regulated manner, while controlling the borders. They have elected to do the former "under the table" and ignore the latter, and that is why we have the mess we have.
Again, and finally, the anser is NOT to expand federal power to go after businesses who hire people. This is draconian, anti-freedom, and statist. I will remind you again that the DEFINITION of a person who is both patriotic and statist is "fascist."
No they are not, and the fed has not provided a reliable venue (one that will stand up in court) for them to do so. They are required to check the appropriate paperwork, which both you and I know can be photoshopped in a matter of minutes.
The fed has already made business the bagman for collecting taxes through mandatory payroll witholding (dump your accounting costs off on business!!!! Nice work if you can get it!), going so far as to demand that we slice and dice the witheld moneys into the appropriate fed "alphabet" programs. Now you are demanding that the fed charge (who else?) BUSINESSES with their failed role of policing the border.
Can you not see that this is the same stupid reasoning that is causing businesses to flee the country now? What are you people thinking? Businesses already bear the weight of 8 billion regulatory and tax burdens and you folks want to add ANOTHER one? Are you out of your mind?
Just for the record, I employ NO illegal persons, directly or indirectly. I have contracted some illegals to do work on my house, but that is only because the local labor was so sorry they would not even show up to bid it.
We have already been over how the RICO statutes are inappropriate here and were never intended for this. You returned nothing but some macho crap about how you ran the National Federation of Independent Businesses reps off from your two businesses and how you did this and that. I can repost the article on how this is a misapplication of the statute if it will refresh your memory.
Push the illegals out, at the point of a bayonet if necessary...
No, ‘we’ folks don’t want to add ANOTHER burden. We want the current laws ENFORCED. Hiring ILLEGAL ALIENS is ILLEGAL. Period. It’s the greed of big business in this country that BOTH encourages illegal immigration AND sends our jobs overseas.
“Just for the record, I employ NO illegal persons, directly or indirectly. I have contracted some illegals to do work on my house, but that is only because the local labor was so sorry they would not even show up to bid it.”
I see no difference between ‘employing’ them and ‘contracting them’. As an American citizen, you’re either part of the problem, or part of the solution.
Macho crap?
Those guys are bums. You can suck up to them for all I care. They have no place in a LEGIT small business.
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