Thread: Illegal sues for higher pay – and wins!

Illegal sues for higher pay – and wins!
Aliens demand companies shell out minimum wage or face state investigation
Posted: January 06, 2009
9:50 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Outraged at his low pay and uncompensated overtime, an illegal alien in Boston filed a complaint with the Massachusetts attorney general's office against a supermarket – and won his case.

The illegal alien from Guatemala spoke to the Boston Globe anonymously because he feared deportation.

"I was just collecting what was rightfully owed to me," he said in Spanish. "They already pay us a miserable amount of money. Why do they have to rob us?"

The alien spent years at a Super 88 supermarket seafood counter earning $6 an hour instead of the state's $8 an hour minimum wage. He grew frustrated as the supermarket did not compensate him for his overtime work.

One day, he decided to gather his pay stubs into a plastic bag and deliver them to a lawyer – who turned them over to the state attorney general's office.

To his surprise, Super 88 was ordered to provide back pay and fines of $200,000 to more than 300 workers, the Globe reported.

Illegal aliens now make up 17 percent of Massachusetts' workers – twice the state's 1980 workforce. Authorities have expressed concern that employers sometimes exploit illegals because they believe aliens will not report them to state labor authorities.

"It's a huge problem," Russ Davis, executive director of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, told the Globe. "We really need some major way to address it, and if not, the economy in Massachusetts is going to spiral down into sweatshop conditions."

Super 88's owners are said to be Vietnamese immigrants who did were not aware with the state's labor laws. Now they are paying penalties and back wages and are subject to state monitoring.

According to the report, Attorney General Martha Coakley has staffed bilingual employees, allowed complaints to be filed in 90 languages and provided logbooks to nonprofit organizations to help illegal aliens track their hours.

Now state officials are implementing a no tolerance policy for companies that don't compensate illegals.

In November, 764 former workers at a New Bedford factory raided by U.S. immigration agents won an $850,000 settlement. The company was forced to pay overtime wages.

In May, C-Mart Supermarket in Chinatown was forced to pay $66,000 for not adhering to state minimum wage.

The seafood worker from Super 88, a father of five, said he worked 14 hours every day, six days a week since 2004 at the $6 rate. He said he applied there after his job painting houses for $10 an hour became too hazardous. He was working without a harness and standing on old ladders.

"It's like we're worth nothing," he said. "I was worried. But I was also worried about my family because I had to send them money."

According to the Globe, the attorney general's office never asks about a worker's citizenship status because officials claim their intention is to enforce state law – not federal immigration law.

Steve Kropper, cochair of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said illegals are not entitled to minimum wage because they are not citizens.

"No government resources should be devoted to the rights of people who are here illegally," he said. "They broke the law by being here. They had no right to the job."

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=P ... geId=85432

Now state officials are implementing a no tolerance policy for companies that don't compensate illegals.

So the Law of our country is to keep these people out why are we making laws to let them stay and be protected Illegally??

This is a tough one. They shouldn't be here working illegally, but I'm sick of employers thinking they can get out of paying people what they are due. This might be obvious because it's a grocery store. But there are alot of positions, especially those in tip areas, that are working for less than minimum wage and are taxed on tips they might not recieve that are supposed to "average" minimum wage. Some employers don't hire for jobs, such as dish washer, and expect a person who is a delivery driver to do that job while they are working just for tips. It's just another way to avoid paying what a person is due. I lasted quite shortly at a job where I was a waitress. Hired as a waitress but they had me comming in a few minutes short of closing time.....waited a couple tables and then was expected to work as janitor and cleaning lady and balance registers and do office work, help unload deliveries etc. for the remaining schedualed hours when the restaurant was closed.....for 1.40 an hour. I agreed to the pay for the position of waitress, but because of what business it was, they got around having to pay me what I should have gotten if I were hired as a cleaning lady, un-loader or office personal.

My husband did pizza delivery and got into unloading trucks, taking orders, cooking, doing dishes etc......coz he was hired as a for tips only delivery driver. So he could put in a full day working and maybe have only 5 deliveries. Maybe they tipped, maybe they didn't, but it sure didn't average minimum wage.

Plus....here we go again....Federal rule vs State rule. Some states pay more than what the Federal minimum wage is. It was one wage in Nebraska, 6.25 because they had a higher state minimum wage, but drive a few miles to another state and you were back to 5.15....Federal minimum wage (at the time).

Another passing thought. I had a friend who was working and took off a whopping week to have her baby. They cut her pay on the first check she received after having the baby. She called about the legality of this figuring she'd have her ducks in a row before confronting the boss and covering all bases, thinking they could resolve it. They told her that since she signed and cashed the check it was her legal acknowledgement that the pay was correct and nothing they could do. If she wouldn't have cashed the check there was something they might have been able to do....but signing the check changed it all. My daughter had a job where she still never got what she was due because they kept saying they'd make it up next pay period and never did. Same thing, sign the check and it's your acknowledgement that the pay is correct.

Super 88's owners are said to be Vietnamese immigrants who did were not aware with the state's labor laws.

Yeah right! Not knowing the law doesn't get you far with the IRS, and the same should apply to state labor laws. Just wonder if they knew the law when they paid American workers.
But I have to agree that since immigration laws do not apply to the illegals, why should state labor laws?

Originally Posted by crazybird

This is a tough one. They shouldn't be here working illegally, but I'm sick of employers thinking they can get out of paying people what they are due.

I agree with crazybird on this. As much as I don't think our laws should be protecting illegals I also don't think it should protect greedy employers. If employers can't get away with paying slave wages maybe it will make illegals less desirable to them.

If employers can't get away with paying slave wages maybe it will make illegals less desirable to them.

I'd go so far as to protecting legal immigrants who are getting paid less than American workers in order to stop this drive to bring in cheap labor for doing the same job and keeping jobs from qualified citizens. There needs to be a push to make it more beneficial to hire American workers, instead of the loop-hole to replace citizens with cheap labor and driving our wages down even lower. Maybe we are on the high end of the pay scale compared to other countries, but so is our cost of living. Giving what jobs we have to immigrants, legal or illegal to drop the pay isn't fixing the problem. It's just increasing the population and tossing the citizens into poverty since there aren't enough jobs to go around. This whole globalization mess is nothing but poverty redistribution at the cost of citizens of countries who were doing well. I don't mind sharing, but I don't for this total take away from the citizens and hand it over to someone else who doesn't have to go through everything a citizen does and lives under different rules. They can take and leave and go back home, while the citizens are left to maintain because this is home....there is no place to run where jobs and family and a famaliar way of life is waiting.

does anyone think that since so many other country's are putting most of the pressure on our govt and employers here because so many Americans buy products made by cheap foreign labor. in other country's that they feel obligated to push us all toward world wage equality. We need to stop importing cheap goods from other country's and make our own like we used to.

Super 88's owners are said to be Vietnamese immigrants who did were not aware with the state's labor laws.

How can you open a business and not know what the laws are? Heck, does that mean I can just hang out a shingle and do what I want?

does anyone think that since so many other country's are putting most of the pressure on our govt and employers here because so many Americans buy products made by cheap foreign labor. in other country's that they feel obligated to push us all toward world wage equality. We need to stop importing cheap goods from other country's and make our own like we used to.
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I agree.....the wonders of globalization was supposed to bring them up.....not throw us in the ditch. Problem is, there aren't enough American made products anymore. I buy American made products every chance I get. I would boycott more in order to not contribute to the problem, but even the lables are misleading in order to not be isolationists or protectionists. (as they put it) It's survival in my opinion. I don't think many of these countries would loose a nights sleep worrying about poverty in America....even if we were all on equal pay.

Duplicate. Please refer further comments to:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-142281-sup ... ml+seafood