Disposable worker dies and 13 year old injured working on Value Palace hotel in IN.

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"It's also possible no one will be held accountable."

Who? A couple of misclassified workers for a company named Carpetbaggers, working under the General Contractor Millstone. Jose Delgado, Sr., 31, of the 2000 block of Breaburn East Drive, Indianapolis, and his son, Jose Delgado, Jr., 13, who lives at the same address
What? One dies and his son, a 13 year old severely injured while working with him while improperly using a fork lift as an elevator
Where? A new hotel in Indiana, the Value Palace, which unfortunately has no standard on who they work with, some value, people die cutting corners. The Value Place hotel is located at the southwest corner of I-65 and County Line Road in Johnson County.
When? Last week, Oct 16th.
Why? Because they can get away with it.

From wthr.com 13 in Indiana:

Greenwood - A forklift accident two weeks ago claimed the life of a Greenwood construction worker. His teenage son was also on the site, and was also injured. Now OSHA officials may be looking into more violations.

As the new Value Place hotel takes shape in Greenwood, so too are state officials making progress on their investigation into an accident on the site two weeks ago.

Three tile workers were coming off the fourth floor into an aerial basket when, according to police reports, two of the workers, 31-year-old Jose Delgado, Sr. and his son, slid off the forks and the forklift fell to the ground. Delgado later died from his injuries. His son, at first reported to be only 15 years old, was also hurt.

"A construction site like this is not a place for a child like that to be working," said OSHA deputy commissioner Jeff Carter.

Carter says this week investigators learned the boy wasn't 15 after all. "We believe he's younger than that now. We believe he could be as young as 13," he said.

By law, that's too young to be on the job site. Investigators are also looking at the forklift used by the workers.

One thing OSHA investigators will have to determine is whether the workers were using the forklift incorrectly, or if that machinery is used in a similar fashion on this or other job sites.

The basket on the forklift is what OSHA investigators consider "homemade." Officials want to know if the workers were trained to use it.

"That basket we have questions about. It does not meet the standards," said Carter.

The contractor supervisor on site told police the day of the accident, "Any subcontractor may use the on-site forklift, but must sign a contract stating they must get the necessary training." He went on to say, "Millstone [the general contractor] does not allow people in the basket."

But two weeks after the fatal accident, Eyewitness News saw two workers in what appears the be the same forklift.

"The company will probably be cited," Carter said.

Citations are likely. But who the state holds accountable for one worker's death is still unclear.

The driver of the forklift, Antonio Torres, told police he didn't have a key to drive it and that he used a pocket knife to start the engine.

OSHA officials say citations may be directed at Torres, who is an independent contractor, Carpetbaggers, the company who hired him, and Millstone, the general contractor on the construction site. It's also possible no one will be held accountable.

The investigation is expected to take another two weeks.

So how does this happen?

let's ask Chris the Carpenter from Indiana, in a story entitled "Joe the Plumber-meet Chris the Carpenter!!":

Now the quarter of a million mark wouldn't really be that hard to meet. I can't speak with any first hand knowledge, but being on the inside looking out, I can say with much certainty that there are people in our line of work that do much better than we do. And I think $250,000.00 is quite obtainable. See, as a union contractor we are obligated to pay the union benefits and wages that our contract states but if we were a non-union contractor we could get by a lot cheaper. Now I know there are some stand up non-union contractors that pay a good wage to their employees, offer health care and a 401k etc. But those guys know, as well as I do, that there are those out there that take advantage of people and don't do things on the up and up. I know because I see them on a regular basis on jobs throughout central Indiana.

I'm talking about the elephant in the room in the construction industry. It works like this. A guy secures a contract to do a job, say, roofing, masonry, landscaping, drywall, whatever. He then purchases the material and he finds a labor broker. This is usually a legal immigrant that can speak English and knows a lot of other immigrants that need jobs, are usually illegal and have little or no English skills. They will work very hard and they are very reliable. AND, they work very cheap. Now the contractor knows what the labor rate runs and he can charge just a little less than we do or what the legit non-union guy does. He then sub-contracts to the labor broker who then sub-contracts to the illegal immigrants. This is all done on a piece meal basis. In other words, a set amount is paid for the installation of the product, i.e.; 15 cent/square foot of drywall or 45 cents per concrete block. This way, the price is set and the contractor and the labor broker can't lose. It's up to the actual worker to bust his butt to make any money because he only gets paid for the set amount of material in the job. And it's pennies on the dollar compared to the wages my guys get or the good non-union contractor employees get. The contractor then gives the illegals a 1099 form instead of paying the taxes, workman's comp., insurance, not to mention providing a safe environment and the workers don't worry about it because they won't file taxes anyway. They work very, very cheap because the broker knows they won't say anything if they want to keep their job because there is a whole line of people ready to take their place.

Just recently, a small hotel was being built just West of Indianapolis and the floor covering was contracted this way or something similar. On a Saturday, workers were stocking material using a forklift that was supplied by the General Contractor. The workers tied a box to the forks and was using it as a man lift to get material to the second floor. (Totally against OSHA regulations) The box broke loose and two workers in the box fell to the ground. It was a father and son. Illegal immigrants from Mexico. The boy was 14 years old. Both died. This is not an isolated incident. If these workers were fortunate enough to live and only receive serious injuries, this story would never be told because they would be whisked away and 2 more put in their place. There has been no follow up story to the contractors on this project, and I'm sure that somebody got in trouble. But those lives are lost forever. And the work will be done in this manner over and over again because nothing is being done about it.

I hope you all understand that I'm not putting the blame on the illegal immigrants. I understand their plight. If I had to feed my family and I could make money to do that in Mexico, I would be there in a heartbeat. The blame is to be placed on the employers that take advantage of these people so they can line their own pockets. I'm not trying to solve the immigration problem right now. I'm trying to show Joe the Plumber that it's not as glamorous as it looks. So go ahead Joe, buy that company. Run a legitimate business. Put in the hours to make it work. Build yourself up to make that $250-300,00.00. Believe me, if I get to $300k, I'll pay the 4-5% extra taxes and never blink. But how much are you going to be paying the people that got you to that level? You gotta pay them a decent living wage too. You'll never do any of it without good employees. So you gotta spread the wealth with your employees first or you'll never make it as an employer.

So, go for it Joe!! See ya on the jobsite, huh?

Chris the carpenter Central Indiana

Picture and some info from:
The Indy Channel, AllVoices.com

Building Bridges Radio: A POW with John McCain, US largest immigration raid in IBEW facility

Radio broadcast above embedded from the Internet Archive -click link to download

From Building Bridges Radio:

Dr. Phillip Butler knew McCain as a fellow POW
by Robert Greenwald and Brave New PAC team

John McCain has been exploiting his prisoner of war experience every chance he gets. He has used this story to justify everything from not knowing how many homes he has to his healthcare plan to his marital infidelities to his taste in music. The McCain campaign is even using his POW story in paid ads. But now a veteran who was a prisoner with McCain in Vietnam is explaining loud and clear that being a POW does not qualify McCain to lead our country.

ICEd in the Biggest Immigration Raid Yet (starts around 6 minutes)
With Bill Chandler, Executive Dir., Mississippi Immigrant
Rights Alliance (MIRA)

In another large-scale workplace immigration crackdown, federal officials raided a factory in Laurel Mississippi detaining almost 600 workers they claimed were in the country illegally. Numerous agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on a factory belonging to Howard Industries Inc., which manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

Please email Building Bridges if you are broadcasting our National Edition. We'd like to have an accurate list of which stations are airing Building Bridges., so please let us know! Email knash@igc.org
=========================================
For archived Building Bridges National Programs go to
http://www.archive.org/details/building_bridges
For archived Building Bridges program go to our new website:
http://www.buildingbridgesradio.blogspot.com

For more information about IBEW and Howard Industries, check out this Google link

Utah creates loophole to encourage use of more illegal alien's, workers no longer covered under workman's compensation, employers skate

clip from The Salt Lake Tribune article "Insurance loophole makes it easy for employers to exploit illegal workers" by Paul Rolley (7/26/08):

The law basically allows Workers Comp, or any other insurer that covers injured-worker benefits, to cancel disability payments to someone hurt on the job if it is shown that person has committed a crime, including being in the country illegally.

But, get this, there is no provision in the law to sanction the employer for hiring someone who is in the country illegally, and the injured worker denied the disability benefits cannot pay an attorney to represent him or her against the insurance company's actions, according to Labor Commission rules.

Call it the employer have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too bill.

Under the new law, and its interpretation by the Labor Commission, a construction company, say, can hire laborers to perform dangerous manual jobs and if a laborer gets hurt the company can escape liability by having the insurance company throw out the benefits if the employee cannot prove he or she is in the country legally. And, the employer isn't sanctioned for having certified the employee was legally eligible for work when he or she was hired in the first place.

Opponents of the law say it encourages employers to hire illegal immigrants because it guarantees not having its insurance company be liable, affecting its premiums, in case the worker is injured on the job.

In fact, the South Carolina Supreme Court said just that in a recent ruling against a similar law passed in that state.

Maybe I'm in the wrong field, with all the protections that companies have avoiding the use of American and legal labor, I could make a mint.

If they were in any way sincere, the employer would have to be liable directly if they hired the illegal alien, but no, that isn't good business.

This reminds me of another recent bill that was floating around Kansas, where it was proposed that any organization that help illegal aliens and collected dues would be subjected to fines of up to $2,000 USD, while the employer who hired them went without penalty.

Of course it took the vote of 19 Republicans in Kansas to pass the bill, you can read the entire article here entitled "KS: State passes bill that will encourage more illegal immigration and punishes unions who try to help the workers"(4/20/08):

This is a new low for the Kansas Senate. A majority of them are happy to turn a blind eye to the hiring of illegal aliens and will use immigration reform to bust unions.

So here is the scenario:

• An employer, knowing that he will not be punished for hiring an illegal, puts the illegal alien to work side by side with unionized American workers.
• The union, believing that the employer would not hire illegal aliens (that is illegal, you know), signs the employee up as a member of the union.
• The union is now subject to criminal action and fines even though the union has no ability to verify the legal status of a worker

This is getting worse people, spread the word.Republicans, while pretending to want to close the borders, do everything in their power to allow the use of illegal aliens.

In Tennesee and in New England, Carpenters picket against 1099 Misclassification

Different ideals, different places, the song remains the same, local behemoth business using 1099 misclassification abuse to lower the standards of local living wages, while in New York they threaten their nonunion workforce with guns, threats and empty promises if they chose to be in a union, screwing workers is big business. Screwing the public by allowing us to subsidize their legal employer responsibility is a tragedy.

From "Rough Carpentry: Local Carpenters Union wages an ongoing battle with Proffitt & Sons" TN (7/2/08) - UBC LU 40

The community is Hardin Valley; Murphy and fellow union member Shane Monroe are stationed on Hardin Valley Road a short distance from the Pellissippi Parkway interchange in front of The Village, an in-progress mixed-use residential/commercial development that will be anchored by a major grocery chain. Murphy and Monroe are seated in fold-out chairs on either end of a 5 foot by 15 foot banner that says, in big red block letters, “Shame on Jake Pinkston.” Pinkston is head of Pinkston Construction, the Village contractor.

Murphy says the union is protesting Pinkston’s use of drywall contractors Proffitt & Sons, for not meeting “area labor standards.” The union’s hope is that passers-by will call Pinkston Construction and protest their employment of the subcontractor.

According to Carpenters Union Director of Organizing Robert Helton, the union isn’t seeking an agreement with Proffitt & Sons, but merely to see the contractor improve pay and benefits packages for workers.

“They’re lowering standards for all carpenters in the Knoxville area,” he says. “We’d like to see them change their practices.”

Helton charges that Proffitt & Sons doesn’t pay what the union considers a fair wage, doesn’t pay benefits to many of its workers, and is engaged in using an inordinate number of 1099 independent contractors, rather than using full-time employees who are entitled to worker’s compensation and unemployment benefits.

“By law, you can’t use that many independent contractors on your site,” he says. “Somebody has to be an employee.”

Helton says the union’s efforts have been ongoing since January; in addition to the Pinkston site, he says they have picketed five other sites in the area, including one for the University of Tennessee (the sign for which says “Shame on John Petersen”) and for Blount Memorial Hospital in Blount County.

Charlie from UBCNewsroom posted a story about whats happening in New England "N.E. Carpenters Union Hits AvalonBay’s CEO, Fliers Target Developer’s Hiring Practices" (6/30/08):

The New England carpenters union is taking aim at a national real estate investment trust and its $7 million-a-year chief executive, Hingham resident Bryce Blair, in an effort to expose what the union calls “the underground economy.”

While some people debate the impact of undocumented workers on construction sites, unions and government officials are going after the companies that they say pay their workers in cash and, in doing so, commit insurance and tax fraud.

Since May, members of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters have been in Hingham handing out fliers with a photo of AvalonBay Communities’ CEO Blair.

“When you see Bryce Blair around town,” the flier states, “thank him for overbuilding the town, hurting the town by using contractors that practice tax and insurance fraud, and just being an unscrupulous guy.”

Carpenters Local 424 Business Manager Rick Braccia said the group has distributed 1,200 fliers in downtown Hingham and at the job site, Avalon at Hingham Shipyard.

“AvalonBay hides behind the fact that they tell their contractors they will not allow illegality, but the reality is, there is no oversight on the job by AvalonBay,” he said.

For example, in December 2006, OSHA reported that Shawnlee Construction, an AvalonBay subcontractor at its Newton and Danvers job sites, exposed employees to fall hazards.

In March 2007, Oscar I. Pintado, a 27-year-old carpenter from Ecuador, was killed when he fell at an AvalonBay project in Woburn. Union officials say he was being paid in cash and was working without workers compensation coverage.

In April, Eric Frumin of Change to Win, a partnership of seven unions, told a congressional committee on workplace safety that AvalonBay sites are unsafe.

The Virginia-based real estate investment trust, formed in 1993, manages 52,167 apartments. In Massachusetts, the company has 5,000 apartments. Most are in multifamily, wood-frame buildings.

In Hingham, AvalonBay is building apartments at the former shipyard.

After union carpenters built a clubhouse and one building on the site, carpenters union organizer Mario Mejia said he met workers from Mexico who were brought to Massachusetts from Virginia. Mejia said the workers are living in Devens and are being transported by their bosses in a van to work every day. They are paid $150 in cash each day, he said.

AvalonBay did not respond to a request for comment on Mejia’s statements.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Hingham, Braccia said public response has been “surprisingly in our favor.

“We do get people who think this is strictly a union issue, and think we aren’t getting the job, so we are angry,” he said.

“We tell them, ‘It doesn’t have to be union, but it does have to be legal.’ ”

More info at the sites below

Glenn Beck commentary: Slavery alive and well in the U.S.

Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.

I have written 2 articles with the same title, Mr. Beck does justice to getting the message out there

In it's entirety, From CNN (4/28/08):

Editor's note: "Glenn Beck" is on CNN Headline News nightly at 7 and 9 ET and hosts a conservative national radio talk show.

Glenn Beck says he doesn't believe there are jobs Americans "just won't do."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Jobs Americans just won't do."

I can't stand that line, but more importantly, I don't even understand it.

Americans spend months at a time at sea fishing for crab or drilling for oil; two of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Americans clean bathrooms, subway stations and crime scenes. Americans man toll booths, pave roads, embalm bodies and inspect sewers. Yet people really expect us to believe that they won't pick strawberries or oranges?

It just doesn't add up.

Earlier this week The Wall Street Journal published a story about a shortage of H-2B visas, which are issued twice a year to nonagricultural seasonal employees. Because our government can't get out of its own way, they recently let an important "returning workers" provision expire resulting in thousands of foreign workers being shut out of the country this summer.

That's inexcusable. I know this will come as a huge shock to those who only like to hurl insults, but I think we should be issuing more work visas, more student visas, and more green cards. And I think we should cut the red tape and bureaucracy that's constantly blocking the front door.

But until that happens people are left looking for loopholes and excuses, and "jobs Americans won't do" is the gold standard.

The Journal article offered an example of a couple that sells food at fairs around California each summer. They say that because of the H-2B visa shortage most of their seasonal employees aren't able to enter the country.

So why don't they just hire Americans instead? Good question. Her answer? "This is a hard job."

I find it pretty hard to believe that there aren't a few college students who wouldn't want to drive around California and work outdoors all summer, but let's assume that's true. Let's even assume that none of the other 1.1 million Californians who were unemployed as of April are interested in the job either. Isn't anyone wondering why?

Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."

No one paints the undersides of bridges for fun, they do it for the money. That's how capitalism works.

How capitalism does NOT work is when we collectively look the other way as companies exploit illegal labor for their own benefit.

The unspoken truth is that these businesses don't hire illegal aliens because they can't find American workers, they hire illegal aliens because they don't want American workers. And it has nothing to do with wages.

Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.

Economist Dr. Thomas Sowell once said, "Blacks were not enslaved because they were black, but because they were available." Can't the exact same thing be said for illegal aliens? They're available and we're allowing them to be exploited in the name of cheap groceries.

Is the price of fruit really the standard we want to live up to as a country? Is that really who we've become?

Many Americans believe that cracking down on the businesses that hire illegal aliens (the current maximum federal fine was recently raised to a laughable $16,000) would hurt these hardworking people too much. A bad job is better than no job, we tell ourselves. But that's catalogue compassion. If you want to understand the real impact of these decisions you've got to get off the couch and go see it for yourself.

Back in 2005, Newsday did an investigation of the living conditions of immigrants in the New York area. In the city of Westbury (median income: $83,000/year) officials found twelve immigrants living in a basement flooded with sewage.

In Southampton (median income: $64,000/year) officials found immigrants living in sheds with no plumbing or heat.

In New Cassel (median income: $62,000/year) officials estimated there were dozens of "shift-bed houses" where immigrants literally rent mattresses for a few hours a day to catch some sleep.

Is compassion looking the other way while immigrants who come here for the dream end up living a nightmare smack dab in the middle of some of our wealthiest communities?

Is compassion ignoring stories that reveal the truth, like the recent raid of a squalid "drop house" in Los Angeles where 57 illegal aliens were being held against their will?

Is compassion not wanting to hear that a woman was raped in that drop house, or that many more would have been if not for the screams of their children disrupting the attackers?

If that's compassion, then I guess I'm happy to be accused of having none.

The problem with the debate over illegal immigration right now is that special interests have been successful in making us think with our hearts instead of our brains. We've been persuaded to believe that real compassion can only be achieved by following their agenda. But look where that's gotten us. And more importantly, look where that's gotten the people they're supposedly trying to help.

If you really want to be compassionate, then help immigrants get jobs here the right way. Help put crippling fines on the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, help expand and simplify the visa process, and, most importantly, help get people to start thinking with their brains again.

After all, compassion without common sense may feel good but it doesn't achieve anything. If you need proof then go out and give $1,000 to every homeless person who asks you for change. I bet your heart would be full, but your wallet would soon be empty. And all those people would probably still be homeless.

Great article, this is the very point of a lot of my writings here and around the net, jobs Americans wont do, see my article on "Modern day Slavery hunger strikers going on day 20, Get E-Active!" on how my trade has been violated by Signal International, and thats only one very small story that made the news. What about the Verizon subcontractor, the H1B Visa abuses and disqualification of US workers, as i state in the article about the pregnant 17 year old Mexican girl who died of thirst on a farm in California, there is a war on the American worker, spread the word, this affects all of us, liberal, black, Chinese, conservative, Latino,union, Republican, white, Catholic, Democrat, Jewish, Muslim, immigrant, our parents, our kids, etc...

Glenn Beck commentary: Slavery alive and well in the U.S.

Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.

I have written 2 articles with the same title, Mr. Beck does justice to getting the message out there

In it's entirety, From CNN (4/28/08):

Editor's note: "Glenn Beck" is on CNN Headline News nightly at 7 and 9 ET and hosts a conservative national radio talk show.

Glenn Beck says he doesn't believe there are jobs Americans "just won't do."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Jobs Americans just won't do."

I can't stand that line, but more importantly, I don't even understand it.

Americans spend months at a time at sea fishing for crab or drilling for oil; two of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Americans clean bathrooms, subway stations and crime scenes. Americans man toll booths, pave roads, embalm bodies and inspect sewers. Yet people really expect us to believe that they won't pick strawberries or oranges?

It just doesn't add up.

Earlier this week The Wall Street Journal published a story about a shortage of H-2B visas, which are issued twice a year to nonagricultural seasonal employees. Because our government can't get out of its own way, they recently let an important "returning workers" provision expire resulting in thousands of foreign workers being shut out of the country this summer.

That's inexcusable. I know this will come as a huge shock to those who only like to hurl insults, but I think we should be issuing more work visas, more student visas, and more green cards. And I think we should cut the red tape and bureaucracy that's constantly blocking the front door.

But until that happens people are left looking for loopholes and excuses, and "jobs Americans won't do" is the gold standard.

The Journal article offered an example of a couple that sells food at fairs around California each summer. They say that because of the H-2B visa shortage most of their seasonal employees aren't able to enter the country.

So why don't they just hire Americans instead? Good question. Her answer? "This is a hard job."

I find it pretty hard to believe that there aren't a few college students who wouldn't want to drive around California and work outdoors all summer, but let's assume that's true. Let's even assume that none of the other 1.1 million Californians who were unemployed as of April are interested in the job either. Isn't anyone wondering why?

Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."

No one paints the undersides of bridges for fun, they do it for the money. That's how capitalism works.

How capitalism does NOT work is when we collectively look the other way as companies exploit illegal labor for their own benefit.

The unspoken truth is that these businesses don't hire illegal aliens because they can't find American workers, they hire illegal aliens because they don't want American workers. And it has nothing to do with wages.

Illegal aliens mean no workers' comp claims, no age, race or sex discrimination lawsuits, no healthcare premiums, no unions, and no demands for raises, vacations or bigger offices. In fact, illegal immigrants are the perfect employees because they're not employees at all; they're corporate slaves.

Economist Dr. Thomas Sowell once said, "Blacks were not enslaved because they were black, but because they were available." Can't the exact same thing be said for illegal aliens? They're available and we're allowing them to be exploited in the name of cheap groceries.

Is the price of fruit really the standard we want to live up to as a country? Is that really who we've become?

Many Americans believe that cracking down on the businesses that hire illegal aliens (the current maximum federal fine was recently raised to a laughable $16,000) would hurt these hardworking people too much. A bad job is better than no job, we tell ourselves. But that's catalogue compassion. If you want to understand the real impact of these decisions you've got to get off the couch and go see it for yourself.

Back in 2005, Newsday did an investigation of the living conditions of immigrants in the New York area. In the city of Westbury (median income: $83,000/year) officials found twelve immigrants living in a basement flooded with sewage.

In Southampton (median income: $64,000/year) officials found immigrants living in sheds with no plumbing or heat.

In New Cassel (median income: $62,000/year) officials estimated there were dozens of "shift-bed houses" where immigrants literally rent mattresses for a few hours a day to catch some sleep.

Is compassion looking the other way while immigrants who come here for the dream end up living a nightmare smack dab in the middle of some of our wealthiest communities?

Is compassion ignoring stories that reveal the truth, like the recent raid of a squalid "drop house" in Los Angeles where 57 illegal aliens were being held against their will?

Is compassion not wanting to hear that a woman was raped in that drop house, or that many more would have been if not for the screams of their children disrupting the attackers?

If that's compassion, then I guess I'm happy to be accused of having none.

The problem with the debate over illegal immigration right now is that special interests have been successful in making us think with our hearts instead of our brains. We've been persuaded to believe that real compassion can only be achieved by following their agenda. But look where that's gotten us. And more importantly, look where that's gotten the people they're supposedly trying to help.

If you really want to be compassionate, then help immigrants get jobs here the right way. Help put crippling fines on the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, help expand and simplify the visa process, and, most importantly, help get people to start thinking with their brains again.

After all, compassion without common sense may feel good but it doesn't achieve anything. If you need proof then go out and give $1,000 to every homeless person who asks you for change. I bet your heart would be full, but your wallet would soon be empty. And all those people would probably still be homeless.

Great article, this is the very point of a lot of my writings here and around the net, jobs Americans wont do, see my article on "Modern day Slavery hunger strikers going on day 20, Get E-Active!" on how my trade has been violated by Signal International, and thats only one very small story that made the news. What about the Verizon subcontractor, the H1B Visa abuses and disqualification of US workers, as i state in the article about the pregnant 17 year old Mexican girl who died of thirst on a farm in California, there is a war on the American worker, spread the word, this affects all of us, liberal, black, Chinese, conservative, Latino,union, Republican, white, Catholic, Democrat, Jewish, Muslim, immigrant, our parents, our kids, etc...

Task Force on the Underground Economy and Misclassification at a Field Hearing Conducted by Senator John Kerry

Sara Stafford, a Saugus construction business owner shared her personal experience of being underbid by a contractor using misclassified workers and illegals.

Pictured from left: Francis Callahan, Jr. of the MA Building Trades Council, Mark Erlich of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, George Noel of the state Dept. of Labor and Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Stark.

Submitted by Charles Lezette on May 30, 2008 - 11:22am.

MASSACHUSETTS --

On Mon., April 28, George Noel, Director of the Massachusetts Department of Labor [pdf] and Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Stark [pdf] gave testimony and a progress report on the state's new Joint Enforcement Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification at a field hearing conducted by US Senator John Kerry in Chelsea.
"Cheaters and unscrupulous employers have created an underground economy as big as $1 trillion. Worse, workers right here in Massachusetts are being taken advantage of and not getting the benefits and protections they deserve," said Kerry.

Participating in the hearing with Kerry was US Congressman John Tierney (D-Salem), co-author of the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability and Consistency (TRAC) Act, which seeks to discourage employers from misclassifying workers by allowing the IRS to collect the unpaid taxes from the employer. In addition, the bill would increase fines for misclassifications. Frank Callahan, President of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council [pdf] gave testimony in support of TRAC.

"This is a problem that is severe and is getting worse," said Mark Erlich, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the UBC's New England Regional Council [pdf] who testified on the negative effects of misclassification. Erlich added that it was encouraging to finally see the problem getting greater public visibility.

Business owners also attended the hearing. Sara Stafford, a Saugus construction business owner shared her personal experience of being underbid by a contractor using misclassified workers and illegals. Scott Morrisey of Red Line Wall Systems, Inc. gave this overview [pdf].
Ask your US Representative to support H.R. 5804, the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act.

Charles Lazette is a contributer/Administrator of Union Review and a politically active member of UBC local 370 in upstate New York, he also runs his website UBCNewsroom, go check it out and keep up to date with the latest misclassification headlines in the US and other news that affects workers in the area

Task Force on the Underground Economy and Misclassification at a Field Hearing Conducted by Senator John Kerry

Sara Stafford, a Saugus construction business owner shared her personal experience of being underbid by a contractor using misclassified workers and illegals.

Pictured from left: Francis Callahan, Jr. of the MA Building Trades Council, Mark Erlich of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, George Noel of the state Dept. of Labor and Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Stark.

Submitted by Charles Lezette on May 30, 2008 - 11:22am.

MASSACHUSETTS --

On Mon., April 28, George Noel, Director of the Massachusetts Department of Labor [pdf] and Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Stark [pdf] gave testimony and a progress report on the state's new Joint Enforcement Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification at a field hearing conducted by US Senator John Kerry in Chelsea.
"Cheaters and unscrupulous employers have created an underground economy as big as $1 trillion. Worse, workers right here in Massachusetts are being taken advantage of and not getting the benefits and protections they deserve," said Kerry.

Participating in the hearing with Kerry was US Congressman John Tierney (D-Salem), co-author of the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability and Consistency (TRAC) Act, which seeks to discourage employers from misclassifying workers by allowing the IRS to collect the unpaid taxes from the employer. In addition, the bill would increase fines for misclassifications. Frank Callahan, President of the Massachusetts Building Trades Council [pdf] gave testimony in support of TRAC.

"This is a problem that is severe and is getting worse," said Mark Erlich, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the UBC's New England Regional Council [pdf] who testified on the negative effects of misclassification. Erlich added that it was encouraging to finally see the problem getting greater public visibility.

Business owners also attended the hearing. Sara Stafford, a Saugus construction business owner shared her personal experience of being underbid by a contractor using misclassified workers and illegals. Scott Morrisey of Red Line Wall Systems, Inc. gave this overview [pdf].
Ask your US Representative to support H.R. 5804, the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act.

Charles Lazette is a contributer/Administrator of Union Review and a politically active member of UBC local 370 in upstate New York, he also runs his website UBCNewsroom, go check it out and keep up to date with the latest misclassification headlines in the US and other news that affects workers in the area

KS: State passes bill that will encourage more illegal immigration and punishes unions who try to help the workers

"There will be no punishment for law-breaking employers and they get the bonus of a state-sponsored tool for union busting." -Mark Desetti

Wow, if I didn't read it, I wouldn't believe it.

Kansas, a state in this United States, has passed a bill through it's Senate that will exclude punishment for the employers of undocumented workers, but would fine a union who lets the worker into it's ranks. You got that? They do not blame the employers, they want to stop anyone from helping the workers.

This is a tremendous blow to organized labor. This is a great defeat to workers in the United States. It encourages more slave labor. More criminal behavior. More dissension and confusion in our country. More separatism and division.

We are becoming a third world nation, and these multi-national corporations are dragging the entire world down with us.

From Kansas Workbeat :

Kansas Senate Votes to Punish Unions for Illegal Actions of Employers!
By Mark Desetti, Director, Legislative and Political Advocacy of the Kansas National Education Association

The Kansas Senate adopted an amendment by Senator Karin Brownlee (R-Olathe) to the immigration reform bill that would put responsibility for controlling illegal immigration on unions and other employee organizations.

Under the amendment any union or employee organization that would “impose or collect union dues from any alien who is not lawfully present in the United States” would be subject to fines from $2,000 to $10,000. The amendment was adopted in the wee hours on a vote of 19 to 18.

It is important to note that the Senators repeatedly rejected attempts to impose punishments on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. In other words, in Kansas, while employers are free to do whatever they want when hiring, employee groups will be punished for fraternizing with other employees.

This is a new low for the Kansas Senate. A majority of them are happy to turn a blind eye to the hiring of illegal aliens and will use immigration reform to bust unions.

So here is the scenario:

• An employer, knowing that he will not be punished for hiring an illegal, puts the illegal alien to work side by side with unionized American workers.
• The union, believing that the employer would not hire illegal aliens (that is illegal, you know), signs the employee up as a member of the union.
• The union is now subject to criminal action and fines even though the union has no ability to verify the legal status of a worker.

What a boon this will be to union busting employers! All they have to do is drop in a few illegal aliens, let the union recruit them, then make sure the union gets reported for collecting dues. The fines help to bankrupt the union and the employer gets off free and easy!

Brownlee argued that she was protecting these workers from “exploitation” by a union that had no intention of providing them with benefits. Oh, after the union gets caught “exploiting” the worker saved by this “protection,” the government can get about the business of deporting him.

This amendment – and the bill it is on – rise to a new level of hypocrisy. Senators who claim to want to stop illegal immigration into Kansas do nothing to remove the primary reason undocumented workers come to this country – jobs. Employers enjoy the benefit of very low wages payable to illegal immigrants and they lobbied hard to block any attempt to institute punishments for employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. They stand against minimum wage increases that would make jobs more appealing to citizens. And now their “pro-business” friends in the Senate have delivered. There will be no punishment for law-breaking employers and they get the bonus of a state-sponsored tool for union busting.

The site goes on to list those in favor and against, 19 Republicans voted for the passage, while 8 against. 3 Republicans did not vote. All 10 Democrats voted against the measure. Go there and see who doesn't deserve you vote in 2008

I applaud the 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans who stood up against this anti-union/pro-corporate Legislation. As you can see, most Republicans are absolutely not for the working class.

Not since the “Kentucky River" decision handed down by the Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Sept. 9th of 2006, which can alienate 8 million workers from being in a union, has there been such an Anti-Union ruling or law established in these United States.

This is the Third World War, the war against the worker.

Recent headlines about the Kentucky River decision "International Labor Organization condemns "Kentucky River" Decision"

Brooklyn,NY: Handyfat workers win $360,000 in back pay, with help from IWW and Make the Road by Walking

UPDATE to-> NY & Surrounding Area : IWW I.U. 460/640 Needs Our Help !!!

From: The Industrial Workers of The World (3/13/08)

IWW to picket Handyfat Trading in celebration of jury award for 6 fired workers of $360,000 in back pay!

Workers from Handyfat Trading founded IWW Industrial Union 460 in December 2005. They were instrumental and active in organizing all the other food service shops that have joined IU 460 since then (ten shops). In addition, these workers along with the workers from EZ Supply/Sunrise Plus achieved the first collective bargaining agreements in this segment of the food industry.

In December 2006 and January 2007, all union members from both Handyfat and EZ Supply were fired. After winning orders of reinstatement and back wages at the NLRB, the workers now begin to win the court battles for their stolen backwages.

The IWW will be holding a picket and press conference this Saturday at Handyfat.

Saturday - March 15th, 2008 at 10am

at Morgan and Thames street in Bushwick, Brooklyn (Look for the big rat on the corner) L train to the Morgan Avenue station The press will be invited to talk to the workers about their struggle and victory.

From UnionReview - NY & Surrounding Area : IWW I.U. 460/640 Needs Our Help !!!

The Story at Handyfat (9/22/07)

In August of 2005, Pablo Montes and Carlos Hidalgo, workers from Handyfat Trading Corp., attended a meeting of Workers in Action, the labor group at the Bushwick, Brooklyn, community organization Make the Road by Walking. They spoke of terrible working conditions: they worked 60 or more hours for a mere 280 dollars per week (at most $4.66/per hour with no overtime); they had no benefits or sick days, and they were called "dirty Mexicans" and worse by an abusive manager. Afterwards, they agreed to bring their fellow workers to meet with two IWW organizers/Make the Road members, six of whom joined the union. On December 5, 2005, over 50 supporters joined the Handyfat workers in a march to declare their IWW membership and demand that the owner observe the wage and hour law. By the end of the winter, the owner was paying legal wages, and the union had won a minority contract, complete with wage increases, sick days, vacation time, and other perks.

You can read more about Make the Road by Walking at UnionReview in the article entitled:
Brooklyn , NY - Fighting For the Little Guy And Winning
and you can read more about the IWW with a search at UnionReview,
While this is a huge victory for the workers, as of 9/22/08, the IWW local 460/640 had been dropping deeply into debt supporting these workers. You can contact them to see if they still need assistance. Hopefully the NLRB decision made them whole again.

Long Island NY pushing towards end of sweatshop construction , proposes law to put contractors at jeopardy of losing right to work in county.

The Federal Government is not doing it's job and the states need to do it for them.

A law has been proposed in long Island which will hold contractors who employ illegal aliens at jeopardy of losing their right to work in the county. From NY Newsday 3-05-08

Brian Beedenbender's (D-Centereach) resolution, which would be the first law of its kind in the state, would put contractors and other licensees at risk of losing their right to work in the county if they are found to be employing undocumented immigrants or fail to pay their taxes.

The resolution would apply to new and renewal licenses for electricians, plumbers and home contractors and also some furniture salesmen, precious metal dealers and landscapers, said Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook).

The bill will go before the Legislature's Consumer Protection Committee next week. Beedenbender said yesterday that he remains pessimistic he will have enough committee votes to move the proposal to the full legislature, but said he will seek the 10 petition signatures needed.

Any law which can take something away from the abusers of these undocumented is a good start. Those contractors that hire illegal aliens for construction work and pay them a pittance of the area standards, without overtime pay, without the bare minimal safety requirements, without workers compensation insurance, etc.. Having these workers under their thumb for slave wages while there are citizens who are having a hard time finding a job is unacceptable.

These contractors must be held accountable. This law would be a start and it would be up to the public to make sure that it is enforced such as the recent law in Arizona which punishes contractors which are found to use illegal aliens.

The purposeful, unregulated influx of illegal aliens here in the states is driving down the wages in every field and I don't see anything getting cheaper, do you? Why do the contractors who bid jobs legally and have qualified employees have to bid work at such an incredible disadvantage, while those unscrupulous contractors are having a field day at all of our expense?

The state must take action. The state must do it now. Just yesterday in NY Newsday:

The federal government is reimbursing Nassau and Suffolk only a fraction of the millions of dollars the counties are owed for housing undocumented immigrants in their jails, Sen. Charles Schumer said yesterday.

The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program obligates the federal government to pay to house undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of at least two misdemeanors or one felony. But Schumer (D-N.Y.) and county officials said the counties are receiving between 15 and 25 percent of what they're owed.

"Who's left holding the bag? The taxpayers of Long Island," Schumer said.
(continues)

"Everyone agrees that the federal government hasn't done nearly enough to bring illegal immigration under control," Schumer said. "When it comes to incarceration services, it's only fair that the federal government pays its fair share."

Get this through your thick heads, these are THREE DEMOCRATS that are saying this needs to STOP NOW!

Almost every day I see a worker hanging off a multi-tier scaffold without a safety harness, most of the time they don't even have a hard hat. It is criminal, and when someone dies due to the negligence of the contractor it is murder.

It can be seen on almost every block in Manhattan. Someone who is not trained , who is in fear of being fired, not payed or deported by a contractor if they speak about their safety concerns is working directly over your head.

Sweatshop construction contractors, those that use misclassified and/or illegal aliens workers, are robbing the public and their employees, through non-payment of taxes, through the misclassification of workers and by putting the burden onto the tax payers, of the social services which their employees rely.

They are destroying the New York labor standards. Some of the many infractions include and are not limited to, many do not pay on-the-books, some instances they do not pay at all, they do not adhere to safety standards, they do not supply safety equipment, they do not report accidents, they do not carry workers compensation insurance, they do not pay unemployment, they have underage workers, they force workers to work 7 days a week at 12 hours a day, they do not send their workers to any type of training, they do not bother to adhere to age requirements, they tell their employees who get hurt to go to the hospital and say it happened on their own time.

I can back all of this up if you read my other articles which should be listed in the Related Posts. Heres another article i came across recently, from The Chicago Tribune 3-02-08

Hundreds of Latino workers across the U.S. die annually in construction accidents, a toll that has mounted steadily. Two years ago 354 Latinos were killed in construction accidents, a 34 percent increase over 2003, the most recent government statistics show. More than one out of three Latinos killed on the job in 2006 lost their lives doing construction work, a far higher proportion than for white or black workers.

And as Latinos have flooded into the U.S., their fatality rates in construction have steadily exceeded those of non-Hispanic workers, although both proportions have trended down of late for full-time workers Many of the Latinos killed or hurt are like Lopez, who is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. They tend to hunker down in the shadows fearful of being caught. Many can't speak English. Even those who do rarely point out on-the-job dangers because they desperately want the money.

Frequently they are hired off street corners for lower-paying, more dangerous construction jobs. Or they work for contractors "with poor or no safety programs at all," said Hester Lipscomb, a safety expert at Duke University.

When injured -- and they suffer more injuries than whites and other minorities -- they are less likely to have health insurance.

Latino construction workers are younger than non-Hispanics. They have less education, and often less experience, if any, in construction than non-Hispanics, according to the Center for Construction Research and Training, a Washington, D.C.-area think tank.

I have already called for the state of New York to sue the Federal Government for their part in allowing this to happen. The state should get back all tax monies which went unpaid, it should also sue for the cost all legislation which is aimed in trying to fix our illegal alien problems. According to FPI (Fiscal Policy Institutes), in construction alone it is estimated that the loss in tax payments by this criminal construction industry in NY is almost 1/2 a billion dollars, thats 1/2 a billion dollars! Thats a lot of Police Officer raises. Damn, the subway could be free if we got that back. Imagine what the estimates would be if it included all industries in New York? We could build an educational skyscraper.

The abuse of Mexico's own illegal aliens

Yahoo still picture video, which highlights the abuse in which 400,000 illegal aliens, that is illegal in Mexico, cross to get through to the USA per year. Thats a lot of people who are getting through both countries borders. I can only see this getting worse if the plans for free reign of Mexican domiciled vehicles doesn't get stopped. From Yahoo News

NY: Illegal alien construction worker guilty of murdering actress/filmmaker and the repercussions of the Illegal alien work force.

Just starting her career in 2006 as a filmmaker with the now indie cult classic Waitress in which she also directed and co-starred in, Adrienne Shelly's life was cut short at age 40 by an illegal alien construction worker.

image from NYT

Now if you have been reading this site for a while you already know the impact of the sweatshop construction work force on the cities finances. You already have read about the slave conditions in which their employers keep them under thumb. You understand the pre-1900's conditions in which they must work. You also know that I believe that the enforcement against employers is almost totally ignored.

This unregulated populous is growing by the day and with it is the influx of more who are not coming here just to support their families back home. They are here to make money fast and easy. The powers that be just don't seem to care as long as the countries citizens divide even more on the illegal immigration topic. I personally loathe the idea of making licenses easy to attain, especially the fact that I had to bring my mother with me to get one because I didn't have enough points of identification, and yes i had a student ID, a draft card and a social security card. That still wasn't enough. I don't think that deporting en mass is the correct way to go either.

What I do know is that we have to find a responsible party who is allowing the breach in our border patrolling system. We must then sue them as a class. For unpaid state tax revenue. In construction alone it is estimated according to the Fiscal Policy Institute, that the loss in tax payments to this criminal construction industry in NY is almost 1/2 a billion dollars, thats 1/2 a billion dollars! Thats a lot of Police Officer raises. Damn, the subway could be free if we got that back. Imagine what the estimates would be if it included all industries in New York? We could build an educational skyscraper.

New York State should sue the Federal government.
They should sue for the complete lack of stopping the illegal aliens from getting into the country. If they don't the people of the state should.

In this case of Adrienne Shelly's murder, the contractor who hired the Ecuadorian illegal immigrant should also be tried for aiding and abetting in a murder. Obviously whoever wrote the stories doesn't think that any mention of who the contractor was is of any importance. Of course they don't, who knows maybe they are building in your apartment house, next store or at a local skyscraper in the city. Isn't that a good thought? God, most stories fail to mention that Diego Pillco, the murderer, was an illegal alien from Ecuador. Guess the NY Post is good for something, NOT!

Well heres the story of Adrienne Shelly from The New York Times:

In Guilty Plea, Actress’s Killer Changes Story to Robbery

His original confession had the ring of truth: He was an illegal immigrant working on a renovation job in a Greenwich Village building when the imperious woman upstairs confronted him over construction noise.

They argued. She scratched him. Panicked that she would call the police and that he would be deported, he punched her and pushed her to the floor. Mistakenly thinking he had killed her, he hanged her from the shower rod of her bathroom, in a staged suicide.

But in a courtroom on Thursday, the construction worker, Diego Pillco, 20, told a very different story of how he killed the woman, Adrienne Shelly, a filmmaker, on Nov. 1, 2006. Ms. Shelly, who was 40 and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, had just finished a film, “Waitress,” which opened to warm reviews after her death.

Mr. Pillco, a short, boyish-looking man, speaking softly through a Spanish translator, told a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that the argument had not been over noise, but over a robbery. He told the judge that Ms. Shelly had caught him stealing money from her purse after he had slipped into the apartment at 15 Abingdon Square that she used as an office.

When she picked up the phone to call the police, he said, he grabbed it and covered her mouth as she started to scream.

“When she fell to the floor I saw a sheet and decided to choke her, and that’s what happened,” Mr. Pillco said. The judge, Carol Berkman, prodded him: “And you tied a sheet around her neck and strung her up?” “Yes,” Mr. Pillco replied, “and I made it look as if she committed suicide on her own.” (click for full story)

Diego Pillco was only 19 when this occurred, what makes anyone think that there aren't thousands of underage illegal aliens working here. There really needs to be some penalty for the employers, there really needs to be some action against the Fed for lax border safety.

The big money corporations, the wealthy, the opportunists, are all profiting on the backs of the American born worker and the illegal aliens, they are making our tax money supplement their illegal employees. We, the citizens, are getting double fucked, first by the job we don't get, then by the welfare we grant the illegal alien employers.

I truly was born to late. The American dream is becoming a nightmare. Everything our forefathers fought for, safety conditions, the eight hour day, the weekend, social security, child labor laws, affordable health care, an honest days work for an honest days pay, paid vacation, sick time, the Constitution, our nations sovereignty, the gross national product, the pride in buying union made in the USA, the right to retire securely at an age where you can actually enjoy a bit of life, all of it is now fading away before our eyes. NAFTA seems like it did as it was sold to us, it leveled the playing field between us and Mexico, bringing the Mexican work force upward, the only difference is that the opposite occurred, we are continuously lowering our standard to Mexico's.

New York cracks down on 1099 employee misclassification

From: Change To Win's Web Blog:

We told you back in September about a task force set up by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to investigate "misclassification" -- the scam where employers weasel out of paying for their workers' health care and benefits by claiming them as "independent contractors", even though they work full time for their company -- in New York State.

Well, yesterday we saw the first results of that task force's work -- a crackdown on misclassifying companies that found millions of dollars in owed payments that New York employers had held back:

In 15 enforcement sweeps, state investigators found $19 million in wages that were not reported to the state and $3 million in underpayments to workers, the state’s labor commissioner, M. Patricia Smith, said at a news conference. Investigators also uncovered nearly $1 million in taxes that had not been paid to the state’s unemployment insurance fund...

In their sweeps, which investigated 117 companies, state officials found that 2,078 employees had been misclassified as independent contractors. The task force also found 646 workers who were owed minimum and overtime wages totaling about $3 million.

Commissioner Smith noted at the announcement that the corporate crooks they caught were just the tip of the iceberg:

“I wouldn’t doubt that 10 percent of the state’s workers are either misclassified as independent contractors or work off the books,” Ms. Smith said.

The task force also published a report on their findings to date -- unfortunately it doesn't seem to be posted on any of the various state government sites yet, but once I track down a copy I'll link it in from this post.

Posted by Jason Lefkowitz on February 12, 2008 at 11:02 AM |

Huge win, myself and the fellas at UnionReview have been covering this story for quite a while, you can see the links with a search at UR for Misclassification. The intra-agency communication in the misclassification task-force is a big part of it working. Looking forward to seeing this report.

According to the NY Times 2-12-08

Ms. Smith noted that soon after being visited by the task force, one employer began paying unemployment insurance taxes for 205 employees it previously had not reported.

The employers that were found in violation of various state labor laws will be required to pay back taxes, back wages and unpaid workers’ compensation premiums, with state officials often assessing additional penalties.

The sweeps were undertaken by the state’s Labor and Tax Departments, Workers’ Compensation Board and attorney general’s office, and the New York City comptroller’s office.

Blatant discrimination! Another disposable worker death in New York's underground sweatshop construction industry

First day on the job, untrained worker sent to his death and no one gives a fuck!

Has taken me a few days to try to convey my point of view into this article, unfortunately it's not a book, I'm not getting a dime from it and I need a slight break myself so you now have my second not-finished piece in front of you. Anyone want me to write for money and give me a large advance, I'm all for it. Enjoy...

FROM: NY1

Family members are mourning the loss of a man who died Wednesday during his first day on the job at a construction site in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Police say 43-year-old construction worker Jose Palacios plummeted 13 floors to his death when a scaffolding collapsed on Clinton Avenue. Officials with the Department of Buildings say fast winds caused the scaffolding to give way.

(Fellow worker Ricardo) Uribe said it was Palacios' first day on the job.

Palacios leaves behind a wife and 17-year-old daughter in Mexico City. He left them behind once before when he came to the States seeking more opportunities. "He comes here for work, to give his family a better life. Just for that," nephew Octavio Solis. Now his family in the States, the niece and nephew he lived with in Astoria, Queens, have the grueling task of telling his family in Mexico."All his family is in Mexico. How are we [going to] talk to them?" said Solis. Palacios' mother's health is fragile, Solis says. "She's 74 years. She's old. She's sick with diabetes. She could die, too," said Solis.

The DOB had sent out an advisory Wednesday morning about the high winds, urging all builders, contractors, developers and property owners to secure their construction sites and buildings.

Another illegal alien Hispanic construction worker has died right here in Brooklyn, this time it was his very first day on the job. While my heart goes out to the families affected by this tragedy. I cannot help but wonder if this is possibly another sweatshop construction accident?

The workers allegedly were building or working off a 3 tier or suspended scaffold on the rooftop of a 13 story building to do stucco work, by OSHA regulations if the scaffold was being erected they should have been wearing an independent safety harness, the DOB warning about winds should have stopped that detail from taking place and the relative interviewed, who also worked on the site, did not speak a word of English. The New York Times has pointed out that the deceased was here illegally. Could this be yet another death caused by the underground construction industry in New York? Those companies that employ and abuse undocumented workers every day of the week. How bad is it to be a undocumented worker here in New York? It's real bad, it's a modern slavery and it's in every industry. From blatant racism to horrendously unsafe working conditions and without the proper equipment.

Let us focus once again on my term sweatshop construction, or what one could call the underground work force and the modern day slave like conditions in which undocumented immigrant workers must endure to maintain a job for unscrupulous contractors and the effect it has on it's competition, the state and the public.

Where to begin, well we can start with where I first learned about the inequality. It was a few years back when the New York Times reported about construction deaths in NYC, explaining that in the year ending Sept, 2006:

Of the 28 incidents in which the 29 workers were killed, 19 involved companies with 10 or fewer workers and 21 involved workers who were immigrants or had limited English proficiency and 24 involved nonunionized workers.

If you do the math, according to the NYT, a nonunion construction worker is 500% more likely to die at work in NY, thats a disgusting fact. We are over a year past that report and it doesn't seem like it's getting much better. 2 deaths that I'm aware of in the first month of 2008.

Aside from death and injuries, lets get into labor violations. Lets start with misclassification, this term is used for contractors who term their employees "independent sub-contractors", according to a very good explanation by Mark Reihl, executive director of the Wisconsin State Council of Carpenters:

“This is a growing cancer on the industry, one that will lead us in a race to the bottom in wages and benefits – if it isn’t stopped,” and adds “Rather than withhold payroll taxes and pay Workers Comp and unemployment insurance, an employer can just hand workers a 1099 form and say ‘Here, you’re an independent contractor’,”

A very large portion of these misclassified workers are illegal aliens, this is parg of a story in which the Brooklyn based grassroots organization, Make The Road By Walking, has tried to help these workers and level the playing field:

During 2005, we collected over $600,000 in unpaid wages and overtime, in cases like that of “Luis M.”

Luis worked as a non-union laborer doing heavy digging and cement work for a major utility company’s subcontractor. He had to report at 6am every morning to load the crew’s truck; but his first hour of work each day was unpaid. Luis also worked at least 60 hours a week but never received time-and-a-half overtime pay as required by law. Make the Road by Walking filed a lawsuit on Luis’s behalf in federal court. After several months’ litigation, Luis received $35,000 and reinstatement with the company, but this time with union protection and union pay – a raise of more than $7 per hour, to $24 an hour.

And speaking about the pay scale and working conditions for above mentioned workers, heres an excerpt of a story I wrote called: Why All The Anti-Union Sentiment?

Currently we have a large percentage of contractors (aprox. 1/4 of all current construction in NY has employees that work off the books or are misclassified as independent contractors) here who pay their undocumented employees below the minimum wage and misclassifying them as independent contractors. Entitling them to let the "employee' bear the burden of making sure his taxes are being payed, workers comp insurance is in place, supply their own safety equipment and working conditions.

Currently our Building and Construction Unions, local politicians from a bipartisan background and a host of other agencies, like the Brennan center for Justice and the Fiscal Policy Institute have been bringing to light the reckless behavior of these unscrupulous contractors, their safety violations, their shotty and dangerous work, their unskilled workers, the slave wages (according to the Brennan report some are forced to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for $6-$12 an hour), the public safety concern, the nonpayment by employer of taxes for said employees(in fact 2 construction companies are facing jail time(NY Newsday reported one for $220,000 and another $394,788 in evading employee taxes), The Governor himself has declared an Executive order to end this misclassification of workers, this doesn't even mention the tax burden these contractors push off onto the general public and those contractors who(according to Fiscal Policy Institute) cost workers lost wages and benefits and local, state and federal governments nearly $500 million in 2005.
When one of these 50,000+ workers gets sick and winds up in the hospital who do you think winds up paying for that? We do.Who winds up paying for their kids schooling, the upkeep of our infrastructure, our public employees wages? the list goes on. What is the cost to us for the lowest bid?

Heres some more evidence of the modern Racism in sweatshop construction from PLP.org in a story from Nov.06 entitled: Racism Killing Immigrant Construction Workers

"His dream was to save money and go back home," said construction worker Julio Jara. But that dream was shattered forever when his brother, 25-year-old Clever Jara, fell 17 stories to his death near Union Square in Manhattan. The Ecuadorian immigrant was putting up netting to prevent bricks from falling during repair work on the building's facade. Witnesses said wind gusts may have caused him to slip from the building's ledge.

A good many of the construction workers repairing building facades here are Latino and other immigrants, forced to work under hazardous conditions in order to support their families, both here and in their home countries. Amid a building boom, scofflaw developers are allowed to "self-certify" themselves, so they simply ignore safety and pursue profits. When 27-year-old Arturo Gonzalez was struck and killed last year by an 800-pound steel girder, the Buildings Department "fined" the realtor and owner the grand sum of $1,400!

$1,400, that was the fine, could you imagine? For a human life, how far down the tubes has this country gone? They continue:

The racism of building contractors like Town Restoration -- the company fixing the above facade -- was evident in their ignoring safety precautions for these predominantly Latino immigrant workers. The company didn't have the proper permit for the project, maintained no on-site supervision and apparently had not provided Clever with the proper training for the job, given the absence of such certification. Workers trained for the rigs were not on the site.

According to the latest OSHA "report card" on construction-site deaths, 86% occur on non-union jobs. And the vast majority of these jobs involve immigrant laborers and therefore many cases are unreported. "When a union guy is injured, reports are filed," according to immigrant lawyer David Perecman, but when it involves undocumented workers, "the boss tells them if it still hurts in the morning go to the hospital and tell them you tripped and fell."

Alongside this is the racism of the construction unions which historically have refused to admit or organize black and Latino workers, so now the chickens come home to roost -- thousands of construction workers are unorganized and prey to the bosses lowering wages and conditions for all workers.

While anti-immigrant hysteria is whipped up against workers like Clever Jara, they end up sacrificing their lives for profiteering bosses who figure they can get away with it because such workers are "expendable" -- more evidence that a system that produces such needless deaths must be destroyed.

And from an FROM: NY Carpenters' Union Embraces Immigrant Organizing

Thirty Irish and South American workers filed unpaid wage claims with the state because they weren't receiving overtime pay, even when they sometimes worked 70 hours a week.

According to Puerta, the New York attorney general took the case on civil-rights grounds because Irish immigrants were being paid $10 more an hour than South American immigrants doing the same work.

"It was the Irish immigrants who said, 'look, it's not fair, we perform the same work and we get paid more than these guys do,'" Puerta said.

I don't get it one bit, if you were to call someone a chink, cracker, towel-head, wetback, ginny, mick, spook, square, polock, fag, were to hang a noose or draw a swastika, you would likely go to jail for a hate crime. Of course I'm not endorsing that type of behavior, but...

Think about how backwards that logic is when compared to these unscrupulous employers that are continuously hiring and discriminating against mostly Hispanic undocumented immigrants, and for the most part are the direct cause of their death when an accident occurs ,they get fined $1,400 from the Buildings Department and it seems the only other agencies that actually go after them legally are Taxation and Finance, who usually makes a deal, for less than what was owed, and might seek jail time.

Did you follow that?

Word Knot or Picture= Jail Time

Racism Murder or Grand Larceny= A slap on the wrist

What happened to "sticks and stones"
It should be:

"Words, Knots and Pictures will get Jail Time but Murder, Racism and Larceny Will Never Hurt The Employer"

Where was Al Sharpton screaming like a madman? Where was Hillary getting bills passed against this at the Senate level? Where is Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz making a statement, or giving a flying fuck for that matter? From a close source, he dosen't give one shit who works on the jobs as long as the developing in Brooklyn continues. Where is OSHA reform to deter the next death? According to the AFL-CIO there are only 129 inspectors in the entire state, and it would take 96 years to visit every workplace just once. Why aren't these construction sites considered crime scenes? Why do we still allow illegal aliens to flood this country, instead of creating some sort of legal paths to citizenship when a person comes here to work, learns the nations language and has equal rights at work? Where is the jail time for the employers of these undocumented workers?

I would think that it is those that use alien workers, squeezing their lives out of them like the juice from a lemon, are the ones with all the money and lobbying power. They tend to like us having all sorts of different opinions about Illegal Aliens. And the neglect of enforcing English as the standard language suits them even better. If we cannot communicate, we cannot unite. For communication of knowledge is the ultimate power, and those that prey on this new slave class want a country divided. All the things that our fore-fathers fought for are getting raped in succession. The 40 hour week, most people cannot make it by working 40 hours, just take a view at HBO's The Wire when Baltimore cut back Police force funding and all the overtime stopped one of the cops states "I have my mortgage". With that goes the weekend too, as a matter of fact there are tons of union contracts here in the us where the companies want "Mandatory Overtime" embedded into their contracts. Safety laws are neglected and unenforced. Child Labor Laws, undocumented and underground kinda makes that unenforceable, even such Bib-Box enterprises such as CVS don't bother to abide by such trivial things as Child Labor Laws. Sweatshop conditions, just read above, or do one better grab a copy of Unregulated Work in The Global City, and see how widespread the abuses go. Overtime, pensions, social security, health care are all being attacked. And while we are being separatists, and yes we do it to ourselves, the products we buy are getting smaller, there is an invisible inflation movement going on in this country. From the 11 ounce pound of coffee, to the 1.75 quart of ice cream. We are all doing more for less and have become a complacent 'silent majority" of people who must go through the doldrums of life eking it bye and not having the time to focus on what we need to do to change the world for ourselves and our neighbors. When we don't like it, all we have to do is look in the mirror and realize that we can change the world, it just takes a tiny bit of effort.

As I once stated:
"Such a small percentage try to make the world a better place , leaving the work to a scarce few . If those that did next to nothing did just a tiny bit the world could be a better place for all ."

We all suffer because of this and it will only get worse if it continues.

Images which I created in this post and 3 more are available for download in 9 panel cut and glue poster format at UnionReview: Labor Movement Posters for Download