Posted on 09/28/2006 1:33:44 PM PDT by SJackson
American dream can become nightmare--Some immigrant workers exploited but home builders say they follow rules
Jose Santana does touch-up painting work inside a hotel under construction off Rivers Avenue in North Charleston. BY ADAM PARKER
Jose Santana, a painter from Matamoros, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, used to get stiffed all the time.
The North Charleston resident would assess a job, submit a quote, get an agreement from a contractor, then receive only a portion of what was owed him.
Eventually, he figured out what to do: Draw up a contract in English that includes a detailed statement of work and price, and get the contractor to sign it.
"No more problems," he said, at least when it comes to getting paid. Today, he is licensed and insured and works with a crew of five, he said. But should Santana or his men get hurt on the job, it could mean trouble.
Wage disputes and on-the-job injuries are on the rise at construction sites in the Lowcountry populated by low-wage Hispanic workers, many of whom are illegal immigrants and some of whom are underage. State agencies and advocacy groups are reporting more problems even as home builders say they operate legally. Charleston Trident Homebuilders Association says immigrants with proper documentation are paid the same as native-born workers.
For some workers, the problems amount to exploitation. For others, they are a small price to pay for the good fortune of working in the United States.
Passing the buck
Hispanic construction workers are substantially more likely to be injured or killed on the job than other workers, said Mary Bauer, director of the Immigration Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. That's because of the inherent physical danger and language obstacles that prevent Hispanics from understanding necessary safety information and getting properly trained.
Three known construction-related fatalities have been reported since 2004, including two this year. Miguel Angel Rojas Lucas, 20, of North Charleston died in May 2004 while working for a subcontractor to Palmetto Bridge Constructors on the Ravenel Bridge. Rojas drowned after slipping through an uncompleted section of road and falling 75 feet into Town Creek.
Josue Daniel Martinez Castillo fell to his death May 11, one day shy of his 17th birthday. And a 32-year-old man from Colombia died April 25 when he fell two floors onto concrete at a Summerville construction site.
Most migrant workers who contact Bauer have wage-related complaints, she said. Too often, workers are simply not paid, and when they pressure employers, they are blackmailed: "If you insist, I'll call the authorities" is what they're told, Bauer said.
"Big builders are relying on a system of multiple-layer contractors to allow for the hiring of illegal immigrants," she said, and labor brokers are providing legal cover. Primary contractors rely on subcontractors for specific parts of the construction job, and those subcontractors (who sometimes depend on other subcontractors) are the ones responsible for hiring workers, Bauer said. When documents are presented - a fake Social Security card, for example - no questions are asked.
The legal shell game is flimsy, she said. The main contractor is typically liable no matter what, but legal challenges are limited because of fear of deportation.
Bauer was quick to say that many employers are honest, that her office hears mostly "the worst of the worst." But she said she has collected enough information to know that exploitation is a serious issue.
"It's distressing to see how chronic the problems are," she said.
Employers are legally obligated to provide workers' compensation to injured laborers, regardless of legal status, according to Tammie Brasfield, director of the Coverage Division at the S.C. Workers' Compensation Commission. Furthermore, the owner or principal contractor is responsible for the subcontractor's employees.
No money
Scott Gear, South Carolina district director of the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, receives many complaints about failure to pay wages. He also gets calls about illegal child labor practices. Workers younger than 18 cannot operate power tools, drive trucks or work in ditches or atop roofs. Employers can be fined $11,000 for any on-the-job fatalities, Gear said. Penalties for other violations range from a demand for restitution to a few hundred dollars per person.
His office maintains a complaint hot line, and illegal immigrants who call need not worry about discovery: Gear's policy is not to ask about their legal status or check I-9 forms. "In none of the statutes that we enforce do we legally care whether the people are here in the country legally or not," he said.
His office receives 500 to 700 complaints a year and completes about 500 investigations. Less than 10 percent of complaints come from migrant workers.
Getting a bad rap
Phillip Ford, president of Charleston Trident Homebuilders Association, said most builders, especially the big builders, are honest, law-abiding employers who pay prevailing wages to all workers and seek to hire legal immigrants.
"I think there's a misconception that there are a lot of contractors out there hiring illegal workers so they can pay them dirt," he said.
It's possible that certain small subcontractors target "lower-echelon" laborers so they can pocket as much profit as possible, Ford said, but wages are typically set as a function of supply and demand, not country of origin.
Truth is, he said, native-born workers are in short supply. "It's ingrained in our imaginations that the trades are horrible work," Ford said. "All I heard when I was young was, you've got to go to college."
So it's the migrant workers who tend to get the less-skilled jobs as framers, painters and landscapers, he said. "A lot of people have a hard time finding anybody who's not Hispanic," Ford said.
If the government limited the supply of migrant workers, a labor shortage would certainly result, Ford said, "but I don't think the industry would tank." Costs would go up, though. "You'd have to pay a lot more to get somebody to come out and do your jobs," he said.
Americans shut out
Greg Shell, managing attorney of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, based in Florida, has worked on a number of South Carolina cases. Shell said keeping labor costs low is a business priority, and depressed wages, though good for American consumers, are bad for American workers, who are essentially shut out of certain markets because of the low pay.
"Americans will do any job at some price," he said. Interestingly, the labor component of construction costs has remained almost flat in recent years; higher home prices have more to do with material and real estate costs, he said. New homes would be even more expensive if wages were higher.
"The market!" Shell said with undisguised exasperation. Conservatives want unhindered free enterprise and yet complain that illegal immigration is bad for the American worker. Moderates call for a guest worker program that also hurts the American worker. And employers prefer not to bother with the federal Employment Verification Program, though they could if they wanted to, he said.
"There's such hypocrisy in Congress in all this when it comes to protecting the interests of business. Both parties are totally hypocritical," he said, especially when it comes to guest-worker programs, which don't work well for anyone.
Getting back to work
Yet the U.S. market beckons. And horrible things happen.
Sometimes, workers' compensation attorney Don Gibson hears about them.
One Mexican construction worker nearly sawed his hand in half and went home to cauterize the wound with a hot iron so he could go back to work the next day. His employer took him to the hospital for proper treatment.
Another Mexican laborer fell off a roof in July 2004 and fractured two discs in his spinal column which had to be fused together. Months later, he took a position at a restaurant where he worked 16-hour days, seven days a week, with 25 percent physical impairment. He earned $360 a week.
A 19-year-old construction worker cut his forearm into the bone while on the job. His boss took him to a chiropractor and threatened to kick him out of the employer-owned apartment in which the teen was living. When the case was brought before Gibson, the employer tried to deny that he was the worker's boss.
"It reminds you of the days before the child labor laws," Gibson said.
Gibson is working on more than 100 workers' compensation cases. More than half involve employers who pay in cash and fail to declare their labor costs to the government, thereby avoiding taxes and other financial obligations, Gibson said.
Once he worked on a case where a contractor got Hispanic laborers to sign complicated forms in English that effectively designated them as subcontractors responsible for paying the premiums of their own workers' compensation policies. The amount of those premiums was withheld in cash from the workers' pay.
When he brings cases before the workers' compensation commission, a reasonable settlement is usually the result, he said. Officials rarely fall for the ruses of subcontractors who deny responsibility.
Gibson said his Hispanic clients are hard workers who want to avoid bureaucracy. "Most of the Spanish workers I know would almost rather be dead than to find themselves in my office," he said. "These people want to get better medically and get back to work."
Migrants impact Americans Greg Shell, of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, cited two cases showing how immigrant labor negatively impacts the domestic workforce:
--The bracero program was sponsored by the U.S. government during World War II when the country was experiencing a labor shortage. It resulted in the importation of millions of Mexican farm workers, many of whom were exploited by unscrupulous employers. Farm owners loved the program for the low-cost labor it provided and worried about the impact of higher costs when, in 1964, the program came to an end.
--When the braceros fell away, crops were harvested with mechanical pickers, and the operators of the new equipment were indeed paid more. But the machines also were more efficient, and what the farm owners lost in higher wages they more than made up for in higher productivity.
--During the 1980s in Los Angeles, big office buildings were cleaned by unionized workers, predominantly blacks, who earned a bout $13 an hour. But then maintenance contractors busted the union and replaced the black workers with Latino immigrants, paying them minimum wage. As of 2000, when the Latino workers went on strike to demand better compensation, they were making between $6.90 and $7.90 an hour, according to news reports at the time.
In the headline, home builders say they follow rules
Backing up that assertation, statements from home builders.
workers, many of whom are illegal immigrants and some of whom are underage.
Most migrant workers who contact Bauer have wage-related complaints, she said. Too often, workers are simply not paid, and when they pressure employers, they are blackmailed: "If you insist, I'll call the authorities"
"Big builders are relying on a system of multiple-layer contractors to allow for the hiring of illegal immigrants,"
labor brokers are providing legal cover
Primary contractors rely on subcontractors for specific parts of the construction job, and those subcontractors (who sometimes depend on other subcontractors) are the ones responsible for hiring workers,
When documents are presented - a fake Social Security card, for example - no questions are asked.
The main contractor is typically liable no matter what, but legal challenges are limited because of fear of deportation.
many employers are honest…that exploitation is a serious issue
U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, receives many complaints about failure to pay wages. He also gets calls about illegal child labor practices.
native-born workers are in short supply… it's the migrant workers who tend to get the less-skilled jobs as framers, painters and landscapers
If the government limited the supply of migrant workers, a labor shortage would certainly result, Costs would go up, though. "You'd have to pay a lot more to get somebody to come out and do your jobs,
"It reminds you of the days before the child labor laws
Gibson is working on more than 100 workers' compensation cases. More than half involve employers who pay in cash and fail to declare their labor costs to the government, thereby avoiding taxes and other financial obligations
Once he worked on a case where a contractor got Hispanic laborers to sign complicated forms in English that effectively designated them as subcontractors responsible for paying the premiums of their own workers' compensation policies.
Sounds like a troubled industry to me. Troubled by abuse of workers and illegality, not labor shortages.
They are always free to go back to May-Hee-Koh!
Sure, the homebuilders follow the rules. The thing is, the rules don't apply to illegals.
Maybe Mr. Parker can convince the "immigrant" workers to avoid exploitation by going home.
I have so much to say regarding this post. But I will wait awhile to see if much of it is said before I do. Plus I can't speed type and eat all at the same time.
Racism on the left, plain and simple. The question is this:
Are illegal immigrants "noble savages" who are so inferior that they are not able to function in society?
Do illegal immigrants "need" a bunch of white liberal elitists to "take care of" the illegals and do for them what they cannot do for themselves?
My 45+ year involvement with illegals says NO ! ! !
The illegals are quite capable of taking care of themselves. Turning them into a group dependent on the white liberals is not the solution.
The illegals are buying middle class suburban houses without the help of white liberals. They are finding work quite well.
I personally know more IT workers who have been stiffed by IT employers, than I do illegal laborers who have been stiffed. I personally have been stiffed by IT employers. Relatively speaking the construction industry is more honest than the IT industry.
Josue Daniel Martinez Castillo fell to his death May 11, one day shy of his 17th birthday.
And a 32-year-old man from Colombia died April 25 when he fell two floors onto concrete at a Summerville construction site.
They don't have gravity in Mexico?
/s
Boo-hoo !
In our (the construction company where I work, and others I know of) experience, this is an all-too-frequent construction practice, not limited to illegal immigrant workers.
One must be savvy to avoid it; and even then, sometimes you get stiffed. It's part of the industry.
And what employer wouldn't want employees who work arbitrarily long hours with no overtime, who will work under unpleasant and dangerous conditions and NOT COMPLAIN? And whose existence lowers the wages for everyone else..
What's not to like? Who cares about our culture, language and national security when there's a few more bucks to be made?
Precisely.
absolutely dead on and accurate
The most telling part of the entire article is buried in the next to the last paragraph. The economy would NOT collapse if all the illegals left.
"Hispanic construction workers are substantially more likely to be injured or killed on the job than other workers, said Mary Bauer, director of the Immigration Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center...........language obstacles that prevent Hispanics from understanding necessary safety information "
the 3 death cases cited all were caused by not watching where they were walking/stepping. I guess a mind that thinks in spanish never had to comtemplate being careful of where they step, right?/s
Yeah but the difference is your an American citizen and Adam Parker of the Charleston Post could care less whether you get cheated or not. He's too busy worrying about when it happens to illegals who have no business being here in the first place !!!
I can see where the 16 year old could be a problem, he's a double illegal. Some years ago we had an employer in one of the Chicago suburbs, in the plating business if I recall, who consistantly violated workplace guidelines. After a workers death he was charged with manslaughter, based on workplace conditions, and convicted.
As far as I can tell, this article is just bureaucrats justifying their jobs. I do klnow that required Workman's comp is expensive and often very hard to make claims against.
The mexican criminals don't think our laws apply to them.......why then should our laws protect them?
I'm with you Bob....I say, if they're gonna come here ILLEGALLY, let them take their chances. Afterall, there are no LAWS against the pencil pushers of big businesses exploitating the illegals, just EMPLOYING them.
I can only imagine that in your 45 years 'involvement' with illegals, you already know that. Besides which, based on what you've written, it sounds to me like your real concern is not for their well-being, but that they'll be given both amnesty AND a union card?
"It reminds you of the days before the child labor laws," Gibson said."
Not even close you moron.
Legal immigrants are covered by ALL of our employment laws. Aliens who are here ILLEGALLY are not, and are subject to exploitation by the disgusting, criminal, employers who break our laws to employ them.
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