Thread: Federal government to illegal day laborers We're here t help

The Obama administration has taken the historic and unprecedented move of sending out your tax resources to actively encourage and assist illegal alien workers in our streets when over 25 million Americans are unemployed.

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Federal government to day laborers: We're here to help

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 04/01/2010 02:13:52 PM PDT
Updated: 04/02/2010 06:22:55 AM PDT

CONCORD — A crew of federal officials wandering into a day labor hiring zone used to mean one thing: time to leave.

Not the case Thursday morning on Monument Boulevard. Armed with coffee, not handcuffs, investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor chatted warmly with Latino immigrant workers about how to find jobs without being exploited.

"We're the feds, but the good ones," said Paul Ramirez, speaking in Spanish inside the Michael Chavez Center, a gathering spot for day laborers. "We're here to help workers."

The unprecedented visit was part of a campaign to bring long-established workplace protections to the nation's most vulnerable and underpaid workers, including those who have no legal right to be living in the United States.

"Documented or not, the law is: If you work certain hours, you are owed certain money," Ramirez told the small crowd. Met at first with apprehension, the Brentwood native captivated his audience of men from Mexico and Central America as he told of tending tomatoes, onions, asparagus and cucumbers as a young California field hand. Now an enforcer of workplace rules, he advised what to do when contractors skirt the law.

"We already knew some of these things, but now we feel more comfortable, more support," said laborer Gilberto Villanueva, who came to the East Bay eight years ago from southern Mexico. "It's good that they came."

There was nothing new about the standards Ramirez mentioned:
minimum wage, overtime, sick leave. But none of the workers had heard this before from a federal agent. "We've always been very active in the community, but now we're becoming more vocal, more transparent," said Susana Rincon, Bay Area director of the labor agency's wage and hour division. "Other than that, the message is the same."

Ramirez made the same speech recently to workers who gather outside a Home Depot in Pittsburg. And it's not only a message for day laborers; it was delivered Thursday at the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in San Francisco.

The awareness campaign, called "We Can Help," is being led by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, a former Southern California congresswoman who joined the Obama administration early last year.

Solis inaugurated the campaign Thursday in Chicago with a speech at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, a 19th century landmark of labor reform and social welfare movements. She said she has added more than 250 field investigators, bringing the total to nearly 1,000 nationwide, about the same as at the beginning of the Bush administration.

The investigators have no jurisdiction over homeowners who hire day laborers for temporary landscaping, moving and domestic work, but they do have authority over contractors who make at least a half-million dollars, Rincon said. If workers with a problem call investigators, usually the issues are resolved by phone within 24 hours, Rincon said. In rare cases, the investigators will visit work sites or take employers to court.

Day laborers "know laws are out there to protect them, but they don't always believe it, or know that it can be enforced," said Mike Van Hofwegen, director of the Concord work center. Van Hofwegen was as surprised as his clients when the labor department team called to say they wanted to visit.

"This is the first time we've had this kind of connection," he said. "Someone asked me, 'Is this an April Fools' thing?' "

Such a discussion between federal employees and workers who are, for the most part, illegal immigrants, is likely to engender controversy, but could also do everyone some good, he argued.

"It helps U.S. citizens because they're not being undermined by abusive labor practices in the community, because things are more competitive," Van Hofwegen said.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/politic ... i_14802083

How about the Department of Labor cooperating in enforcing our FEDERAL LAWS!!!

Can we say aiding and abetting,this is ridiculous.

If they are really concerned about wages and American workers, they would send a team from ICE and a big truck to pick up all the illegals and return them to their country of origin. Its not as if they are hiding.

There's really nothing more to say regarding the actions of this treasonous, Orwellian government, that is doing its best to disinegrate the rule of law in this country, thereby eroding established way of life.

"We're the feds, but the good ones," said Paul Ramirez, speaking in Spanish inside the Michael Chavez Center, a gathering spot for day laborers. "We're here to help workers."

A federal official would actually say something like this, in spanish nonetheless, inferring that another federal agency, charged with enforcing our immigration laws is somehow bad?

I guess it really is everything for "la raza" and nothing for all others! What's shocking is that seemingly, members of our own government actually believe this...

"It helps U.S. citizens because they're not being undermined by abusive labor practices in the community, [quote:3f35opq7]because things are more competitive

," Van Hofwegen said. [/quote:3f35opq7]

Huh? Where is it written that U.S. citizens are supposed to compete with illegal foreign labor?

In other words, SCREW YOU AMERICANS WHO ARE OUT OF WORK!

Jackasses

TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT. Aiding and abetting illegal behavior by our own treasonous Government. Now you know the Federal Government is NOT on our side, if you were blind and naive and didnt know this already.

I would like to see the media cover this more. Aiding and abetting by the Dept. of Labor and our federal government, should be exposed. Illegal aliens before American workers again. Shameful.

Psalm 139:14

Another example of what the government's real agenda is!

The awareness campaign, called "We Can Help," is being led by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, a former Southern California congresswoman who joined the Obama administration early last year.

Our Secretary of the DOL. This is what happens when a Hispanic is put in a position of power and holds their allegience to their own people. And for a federal employee to introduce himself in Spanish as being one "the good ones" is preposterious.