Thread: Court says hotel chain doesn't owe foreign workers

Court says hotel chain doesn't owe foreign workers

http://www.katc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9834959

NEW ORLEANS -- Employers aren't obligated to cover the moving costs and other expenses incurred by many immigrant workers, a federal appeals court has ruled in a case against a New Orleans hotelier that hired dozens of foreign workers after Hurricane Katrina.


The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit that accused Decatur Hotels of exploiting foreign workers recruited to work at its hotels after the August 2005 storm, which scattered many of the hotel chain's employees and left the city with a labor shortage.

The suit claims Decatur violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when it refused to reimburse foreign workers for recruitment, transportation and visa expenses. Decatur's guest workers spent up to $5,000 apiece to move to New Orleans from Bolivia, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

But a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit said the law doesn't require an employer to cover any of those expenses.

The court's 14-page opinion notes that the Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security recently adopted regulations designed to curb "unscrupulous practices" by companies recruiting workers to participate in the H-2B visa program.

One of the regulations, which took effect Jan. 18, forbids employers or recruiters participating in the visa program from collecting fees from foreign workers as a condition of employment.

"These regulations may well influence whether H-2B employers must reimburse the recruitment expenses of future guest workers, but they do not apply retroactively to the expenses of the guest workers here," Judge E. Grady Jolly wrote.

Mary Bauer, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center who represents Decatur's immigrant workers, said the 5th Circuit's decision conflicts with a 2002 ruling in a similar case by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

"We're obviously very disappointed by (the 5th Circuit's) decision and believe it was wrongly decided," Bauer said. "This is an issue of overwhelming importance for low-wage workers."

Jolly said the 5th Circuit panel "cannot accept" the 11th Circuit's ruling that employers must reimburse H-2A workers for their transportation expenses. Lower courts also applied that ruling to workers in the H-2B program, but a recent interpretation of the law by the Labor Department "rejects that entire line of cases," Jolly wrote.

Bauer said plaintiffs' lawyers will weigh their options before deciding whether to challenge the 5th Circuit's ruling.

"I don't think this is the end of this issue, by any means," she added.

Leslie Ehret, a lawyer for Decatur Hotels, said the lawsuit has discouraged the hotelier and other employers from participating in the H-2B program.

"It's been pretty scary for employers who thought they were following the letter of the law," she said.

Decatur, which owns and operates more than a dozen hotels in New Orleans, employed about 650 workers before Katrina but lost all but 90 to 110 of them after the storm.

Decatur hired a Baton Rouge businesswoman to help recruit H-2B workers to fill jobs for maintenance, housekeeping and front-desk employees, but the hotelier didn't know about the recruitment expenses incurred by guest workers, the 5th Circuit said.

"Here, there is no evidence that Decatur even knew about the foreign recruitment companies, much less that the companies charged a fee to the guest workers as a condition of receiving an offer of employment," Jolly wrote.

Leslie Ehret, a lawyer for Decatur Hotels, said the lawsuit has discouraged the hotelier and other employers from participating in the H-2B program.

"It's been pretty scary for employers who thought they were following the letter of the law," she said.

GOOD, now maybe they'll hire AMERICANS and LEGAL immigrants.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Leslie Ehret, a lawyer for Decatur Hotels, said the lawsuit has discouraged the hotelier and other employers from participating in the H-2B program.

"It's been pretty scary for employers who thought they were following the letter of the law," she said.

GOOD, now maybe they'll hire AMERICANS and LEGAL immigrants.

Maybe if they get dragged through court enough by these third world ingrates, they'll think twice about hiring them over Americans! Ha! Good for the company and good for the invaders--I hope they both lost money on that deal. It would certainly serve the pigs right!

H-2B Visas workers ARE legal immigrant workers. A large number of natives of New Orleans who previously may have held these jobs were simply dispersed throughout the country by the Bush administration after Hurricane Katrina and left with no means to return and fill jobs such as these. The hotel chain had no control over this turn of events.

These hotel chains could've recruited workers from other states....they surely didn';t have to go through the trouble of hiring hotel workers from Bolivia and other nations.....they just are too lazy to actively recruit in other states.

Originally Posted by Texas2step

H-2B Visas workers ARE legal immigrant workers. A large number of natives of New Orleans who previously may have held these jobs were simply dispersed throughout the country by the Bush administration after Hurricane Katrina and left with no means to return and fill jobs such as these. The hotel chain had no control over this turn of events.

I don't care whether they're called legal or not. We've all seen the youtube video where they said the objective was "obviously not to hire American workers" As long as we have Americans out of work, there should be no one coming from other nations to take jobs. No one! While these jobs would certainly require a certain degree of professional demeanor, they're hardly rocket scientist jobs and I'm sure most Americans can answer a phone and say, "Can I help you?"

Furthermore, if they are expected to pay for foreigners to come here (which these ingrates apparently thought they deserved), they can pay for the relocation of American citizens, so if they're going to pay for representation in these types of lawsuits, it would be much cheaper to hire American citizens. I'm sick of these people. Really sick of it.