Thread: FL - Are new labor laws solution to existing woes?

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Carrie Lavargna: Are new labor laws solution to existing woes?

November 12, 2006
It's tough to run a profitable business, and even tougher when your competition hires illegal workers for lower wages.
The government's refusal to enforce the existing labor laws has allowed the number of illegal workers to grow exponentially. Law-abiding firms have had to make choice: go out of business because legitimate labor costs are too high or break the law and hire lower-paid illegal workers.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Any business that knowingly hires illegal, undocumented immigrant workers is breaking the law and is subject to fines and penalties. With the vast number of immigrants working in plain sight, how do these companies get away with it?

Answer: the government has turned a blind eye to the violations.

In the five years since Sept. 11, 2001, federal work site enforcement of undocumented workers focused on high-risk facilities, including power plants and airports. Labor-intensive industries most likely to employ illegal workers — food service, landscape, construction and farming — had a risk-free ride, according to a recent report from the Government Accounting Office.

The GAO report found that over a 12-year period, the IRS received 10 million W-2 wage reports all with zeros in the Social Security field. Thousands more only partially named the worker by using first or last names. Some employers used one Social Security number to report earnings for several workers. One business used the same Social Security number for 2,580 workers.

Were these employers sanctioned? Apparently not. The IRS never assessed penalties against a business for filing inaccurate earnings reports, according to the GAO report.

The use of counterfeit and stolen work papers is rampant, and the government has done nothing about it. Apparently, it's easy and relatively cheap for the immigrants to obtain fake or stolen Social Security cards, drivers' licenses and work authorization forms.

Using someone else's Social Security number is a felony. It's identity theft. When the Social Security Administration knows a Social Security card is being used fraudulently, they do not even inform the rightful person their identities could have been stolen, according to Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.).

When payroll taxes are paid under a stolen or fraudulent Social Security number, the Social Security Administration puts the money into the "Earnings Suspense File." As of 2005, the file holds payroll taxes for more than $500 billion of reported wages, according to congressional records.

There are no statistics on how much money is withheld from illegal workers as payroll taxes and never paid to the government, or how much in wages is earned by illegal workers without any tax considerations.

Congress has been working on a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow certain immigrants to work legally and grant them amnesty for their prior illegal work and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.

It's hard to get excited about new laws when the government has not enforced existing ones. We need to protect legitimate businesses from having to compete against those that break the law. But will enforcement change when new laws are written?

One business used the same Social Security number for 2,580 workers.

Whaaaatttttt?????? Somebody has an astonishing amount of money in the SS account!