Posted on 01/02/2018 9:58:20 AM PST by jeannineinsd
The deal the worker struck was simple: $150 a day to tile a bathroom and stucco the walls of a home in Arcadia. The pay was to come at the end of each day but never did, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by the California labor commissioner.
After six days with no pay, the lawsuit alleges, the worker finally confronted his boss, who then snapped, called him a “wetback” and threatened to report him to immigration authorities.
“Let me share something with you, not only am I [an ex]-sheriff, my family are all in the police department,” the lawsuit says the boss wrote in a follow-up text message after refusing to pay the worker. “You want to come to my job & create a issue, I will handcuff you take you into custody & wait for I.C.E to come take you in for felony threats.”
The employer could not be reached for comment, but the claim is increasingly common. Complaints over immigration-related retaliation threats surged last year in California, according to the Labor Commissioner’s Office. Through Dec. 22, workers had filed 94 immigration-related retaliation claims with the office, up from 20 in all of 2016 and only seven a year earlier.
The cases include instances in which employers allegedly threatened to report workers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, after they raised issues over working conditions, including wage theft. Other allegations include employers demanding different documents than those required by federal immigration law or refusing to honor documents that appear genuine.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
California law will likely confirm the handyman as a contractor and not an employee. See the IRS and CA definitions for relevance. Therefore the handyman is required to have a CA contractor’s license. Without it, he has no standing to demand payment. Boo hoo. Stack up the violations, say buh bye sooner or later.
This guy is a real jerk and does not deserve to be an LEO or even a former LEO.
He is dishonest and an outright thief.
You hire a man to do a job, then you must pay him. His family needs the money promised and had he known of your deceit, he would surely have taken a job with another person who pay him the amount agreed and on time, so he could feed his children
Apply any legal damages to the wall!
Girlfriend harboring a criminal, eh? Convict her as well.
“Where’s Jose? Have you seen him around lately? The lawn is looking bad.”
“You mean Jose the gardener? I hear he finally went back Mexico rather than get deported.”
“He went back? What am I supposed to now? I can’t water!”
Good example of the evils of illegal immigration.
It’s soft slavery.
People are exploited badly in all sorts of ways. Not just by not getting paid properly.
They have to do things they should not have to. Sexual exploitation isn’t even mentioned. Legal protections not in place. Unsafe working conditions. Etc.
They have no recourse because they aren’t legally here. Of course humankind being what it is often exploits that.
I met a woman who was surprised late in her life by an unintended pregnancy. The woman she served all day told her to get an abortion or lose her job.
Try that if she was legal.
You don’t believe both parties are “acting outside of the law,” or that any employers are threatening illegals with deportation?
Big difference.
I don’t necessarily believe anything in the article is trustworthy.
And along with that if you knowingly employ an illegal, illegally, expect to get jacked around! it takes two to tango and too often the employer is not cited as they should even if they are a homeowner.
That being said, anyone that hires a person and then cheats them out of the pay agreed to after the work is done is just as low in my book, maybe even lower than the illegal.
I have known people who deliberately hired an unlicensed contractor just so they could refuse to pay and leave the guy with no recourse.
We already have laws with fines
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1324a
“(4) Cease and desist order with civil money penalty for hiring, recruiting, and referral violations”
Now, if we actually had an Attorney General who would order prosecutions of employers, this stuff would stop real fast.
Prosecute the homeowner, send him to prison and fine him with some of the fine going to the criminal who entered our country illegally. Deport the illegal. Problem solved.
Whatever
True. Then like most things dealing with the border, we just need to enforce them...
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