What About the Companies?
La Raza, News Report, Fabiola Pomareda, Posted: Aug 06, 2008
Editor’s Note: Immigrant workers detained during ICE raids are being charged as criminals, but who is going after IFCO, Cargill or Koch Foods, the companies that employed them? La Raza Newspaper writer Fabiola Pomareda reports from Chicago.
Traducción al español
CHICAGO – On Nov. 7, 2007, agents from the Cook County Sheriffs Department and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) arrested 23 workers at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on charges of using false or expired identification badges. The badges were used to gain access to the airport loading zones where they worked.
The workers, who were employed by the temp agency Ideal Staffing Solutions, were subcontracted to do work for large airline companies including United Airlines, Alitalia, Gate Gourmet, Air Menzies and Swissport Cargo.
On July 17, 10 of the workers who had been arrested in the raid filed a class action lawsuit in Cook County Court against their former employer and the contracting airline companies, charging them with labor rights violations.
The complaints include failure to pay overtime, payment below federal and state minimum wage requirements, and failure to provide the workers with receipts for hours worked and wages received, among other charges.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of arrested workers Marcelino Andrade, Berenice Jacinto, América García, Oralia Palacios, Miguel Rubio, Ismael Andrade, José Hernández, Lucía Portillo, René Córdoba and Francisco Medina.
In a recent press conference, attorneys Chris Williams and Jed Untereker, who with assistance from the Mexican Consulate represent the 10 plaintiffs, accused Ideal Staffing of providing the workers with the false or expired identification badges so they would be able to keep working.
NO ACCOUNTABILITY
For Ioana Navarrete, vice-consul and director of the Mexican Consulate’s Protection Department, it is clear that the workers were misled. “These employees had no knowledge that by using the identification badges they were allegedly committing a crime,” she said.
“If (airport) authorities didn’t even know that these badges were expired or fake, how were the workers supposed to know?” Navarrete asked.
Untereker, an attorney with Working Hands Legal Clinic, said that, “even though the large companies try to shield themselves (from the law) by using a temporary agency, the law makes it clear that these companies are co-employers and are equally responsible for these infractions.”
Navarrete said the workers are currently being processed by immigration officials, but she declined to give more details about their immigration status.
Most of them were released to their homes after reaching a deal with ICE. But they are not allowed to work, she said.
EIGHT MONTHS WITH NO INCOME
“My name is Pedro and I worked for Alitalia,” said one worker who attended the recent press conference at the Mexican Consulate, where the lawsuit was made public.
Pedro, 59, was arrested during the Nov. 7 raid. He worked for Alitalia from 2002 to 2007 as a temporary employee. One day, his supervisor told him that employees needed identification badges to access restricted areas at the airport. “The owners of Ideal Staffing told us they would provide us with identification to allow us to continue working,” he said.
“I feel terrible, because after the immigration authorities arrested us and after we paid bail, they told us we could no longer work,” he said.
Pedro, who sends money to his wife and five children in Mexico, says he now owes $2,000 for rent plus accumulating utility bills.
While he sometimes finds work helping a friend with construction projects, the little money he earns is only enough to pay for food, he said.
'UNTOUCHABLES'
“The system criminalizes workers and allows bad companies to operate with impunity,” Untereker argued.
During a visit to Chicago earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Under-Secretary Julie Myers said that, “before the next U.S. president takes office in January, we will make it a priority to control negligent companies that are responsible for criminal conduct.”
During a recent meeting with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, Myers reiterated that “harsh measures (will be taken) against companies that hire undocumented workers.”
Since last October, ICE officials have arrested 937 people at work sites, according to an agency statement issued this month. Of these arrests, only 99 involved business owners, managers, supervisors or human resource employees. ICE also levied some $31 million in fines during the 2007 fiscal year, according to the agency.
For veteran Chicago immigration activist Diego Bonesatti, the fact that immigration crackdowns result in few convictions of company officials and managers can be attributed to the fact that many employers “usually have political connections.”
“The usual argument by (ICE) officials is that there are always fewer owners that workers,” he said.
RAID HITS HOME
“Don’t go to work, because there’s an immigration raid,” Manuel heard as he picked up the phone one day. Manuel (who asked that his real name not be published) was supposed to work that day at O’Hare Airport from 5 to 11 p.m., driving luggage carriers.
The phone call saved Manuel from arrest that day, but, left without work, he soon joined the list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Ideal Staffing. He says the company owes him back pay, and he is unable to work until the legal dilemma is resolved.
The 60-year-old worker from Guanajuato, Mexico had worked for Air Menzies for the past seven years, driving luggage carriers and trailers and moving and weighing shipping containers.
His wages started at $10 an hour, and he got a raise to $11.85 a few months before the raid. He worked an average of 46 hours a week for Air Menzies, but to supplement his income he kept a second part-time job as a factory worker, working for 13 years in a small gold and silver factory.
Manuel said that last year, Air Menzies managers told him that in order to continue working he would need a security pass. The company transferred him to Ideal Staffing with the promise of obtaining the necessary working credentials. But that never happened.
“That’s when the raid happened and they rounded everyone up,” he said.
Manuel, who is married and has two children and one grandchild, says he joined the class action lawsuit to recover overtime pay. “All I’m asking is that they pay me what they owe me,” he said.
“This injustice is very simple,” he explained. “I don’t have enough now to make ends meet. I’ve been looking for part-time work, but I just can’t find any.”
Translated by David Boddiger
QUICK FACTS
Wal-Mart Stores
60 stores in 21 states
October 2003
352 arrested
In a settlement, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million in government fines for sub-contracting with 12 cleaning companies that employed undocumented workers.
IFCO Systems
40 plants across the US
April 2006
1,187 arrested
Seven managers were accused of hiring and transporting undocumented workers. Five company executives await trial.
Spectrum Interiors
November 2006
Covington, KY
31 arrested
Company president Jeffery Wolnitzek sentenced to eight months in jail for providing lodging to undocumented workers for personal financial gain. The company received a $2 million fine.
Swift & Company
Six plants in six states
December 2006
1,297 arrested
A UFCW union official and one company human resources employee face charges of hiring undocumented workers.
Cargill Pork Processing Plant
Beardstown, IL
April 2007
63 arrested
Gerardo Domínguez-Chacón, a former supervisor, and María Del Pilar Marroquin, ex–employee of the agency Quality Service Integrity (QSI) received prison sentences of 38 months and 10 months, respectively, for hiring undocumented workers who provided cleaning services.
Koch Foods
Fairfield, OH
August 2007
160 arrested
Outcome: Pending
McDonald's franchise (Mack Associates)
Reno, NV
September 2007
58 arrested
The franchise was ordered to pay a $1 million fine for providing false identification to undocumented workers at 11 locations.
Ideal Staffing Solutions
Bensenville, IL
November 2007
23 arrested
Corporate secretary Mary Gurin was accused of giving refuge to undocumented workers for personal financial gain.
Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Related Articles:
Criminal Investigation into Iowa Company Targeted by ICE
Hispanic Caucus to Investigate Postville Trials
Interpreting the Largest ICE Raid in U.S. History: A Personal Account
After Iowa Raid, Families in Limbo
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User Comments
MdeG on Aug 19, 2008 at 09:03:59 said:
Well, what *about* the companies? None of the comments so far has addressed the subject of the essay.
There are 2 kinds of situations.
1. Reprehensible. Employer deliberately seeks out undocumented labor for the purpose of underpaying and exploiting. Probably done through a labor contractor, but somebody certainly knows what's going on. That's criminal, and deserves to be treated as such.
2. Trying to be responsible. Employer is required to verify that employee has employement autorization docs, either through E-verify (lousy database) or by examination. Employer is caught in a vise: Docs may be forged, employer may be liable, but if too many questions are asked the employer may get it for profiling. Lots of Latinos are citizens, after all, and discriminating against them is a civil rights violation.
What needs to happen here is that the laws need to change and be made more rational.
Threatening individual immigrants will have very limited effects. Most of them are sane and rational people who chose to come here because it looked better than whatever they left behind. Most of the recently arrived are caught in a form of debt peonage that puts their families in danger unless they keep earning US pay. And God forbid we make things here grimmer than they are in Haiti.
Threatening immigrants' supporters is a bit old, Brittanicus. California has to conserve water because people built cities in places where cities don't belong. The 80% figure is nuts; depends how you ask the questions.
NumbersUSA is on decent speaking terms with the Klan and the Nazi party, and should be heard accordingly.
Ransome on Aug 08, 2008 at 15:30:02 said:
We now have the ethnic conflict, the economic volatility, and a continuing loss of world power that Niall Ferguson in “The War of the World” defined as the major reasons for social and ethnic conflicts. If our new president gives amnesty to 12 to 20 million foreign nationals, there will a very violent backlash. This plus the resulting loss of jobs from the new legals and globalization will create very high level of hostility against all immigrants. This country will experience the violence of 1920 and early 1930 Germany before the Nazis gained control of the country. Hate groups will grow in size embolden by an angry public, silent to the violence of the hate groups because they consider illegal immigrants to be their enemy. In light of floundering economic situation and the hostility directed at them, many illegals will choose to go back to their home countries. The ones that remain, liberals, newspapers, and employers of the illegals will be targeted for violence by the well organized hate groups.
Some moderate anti-illegal immigration groups alarmed by the rise in hate groups, the violence between these groups and the Latino gangs, and the Republican and Democratic preferences on immigration will become politicized and create a new third party. Led by an America-first person, similar to Lou Dobbs, but not him, this party will win the presidency and immediately make plans to deport all illegal immigrants with the right of return for many based upon their contributions to our country. In addition, the government would use war time emergency powers to take immediate action to quell and suppress the conflict between the hate groups and the gangs.
There will be comprehensive immigration reform. Mexico would be threatened under the risk of the US government installing mines and other anti-personnel weapons at our border unless she helped to control her northern border. Her Sword of Damocles, the threat of legalizing small amounts of drugs in Mexico will be countered with a government ban of her tourist industry. A Marshall type of plan funded by the US would be used to help Mexico and Central America to build viable economic, educational, socials, and political systems so that their people would stay home. If their privileged upper class refuses to participate, so be it. Globalist organizations like the World Bank would not be involved as the goal is to first make these countries economically self-sustaining. To finance these endeavors, the governments would pullout of Iraq and disengage from the Palestinian conflict including the elimination of subsidies to Israel and Egypt. After all, the violence stemming from Mexico is more of a threat to us than Iraq or Iran. In addition, the US would restrict the globalization of core industries and food products, change our immigration laws to become more restrictive and start rebuilding our infrastructure and reengineering our political systems, educational systems, and economic systems.
nativessayno on Aug 06, 2008 at 23:52:44 said:
Marcelino, Berenice, América, Oralia, Miguel, Ismael,José ,Lucía ,René Francisco , Pedro and Manuel; here's a news flash:
**You came here illegally and worked here under fraudulent means. It is not real tricky to determine that or figure that out. You more than likely used social services. Guess what? You are not entitled to that...
I'm afraid you do not warrant empathy. You are infuriating and have NO business being here, nor being granted gratis US legal counsel either. But according to Fabiola of La Raza in this piece, you are each innocent little lambs.
You aren't.
Brittanicus on Aug 06, 2008 at 17:39:45 said:
Ask your state assembly why taxpayers are going to be footing the bill, for the budgetary mess the state has to deal with?
-->The biased press will not reveal that irrefutable fact why, California is having a $17.5 budget meltdown. Nobody wants to talk about the $11 billion dollars, supporting state welfare programs for the millions of illegal immigrants squatting in this states. California has more illegal aliens feeding at the citizen welfare trough, than any other state. Now with more illegal aliens per square mile than any other community, American citizens must go easy on drinking water. Not only are taxpayers being gouged to sustain illegal income people; they must now conserve water because of the millions of illegal aliens squatting here.
Just as Los Angeles county, San Francisco is part of the abhorrent 'Sanctuary City' mentality, so is the state itself. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. is scared to touch the festering issue, along with the pathetic city administrators. The majority can be attributed to the liberal Democratic state assembly who have used their position, to appease big business and Hispanic caucuses.
Illegal immigration has depressed wages, because predatory employers are hiring illegal cheap labor and ignoring citizens and legal residents. Both McCain and Obama just don't get it, that 80 percent of the American people are furious with supporting the 12 to 30 million illegal aliens who have invaded this sovereign country. The cost is astronomical according to (www.eagleforum.org/sources) Read unsuppressed facts at NUMBERSUSA. CAPSWEB