Thread: Schwarzenegger Pushes Labor Law Enforcements (Illegals)

http://www.fresnobee.com/state_wire/sto ... 4142c.html

Schwarzenegger pushes labor law enforcement
By RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer

(Updated Friday, July 29, 2005, 5:20 PM)

VERNON, Calif. (AP) - Touring a jeans factory that was caught last year underpaying some workers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday a new multiagency effort to enforce state labor and tax laws.

The governor praised the factory for improving its compliance and said the new enforcement unit will target workplaces in an attempt "to shut down the underground economy." The new unit will not focus on workers' immigration status - which Schwarzenegger called a "different issue" - even as one employee at the factory said in an interview that many of her co-workers were illegal immigrants.

The new state budget provides $5.5 million to add 62 new enforcement and audit positions to state agencies including the division of labor standards enforcement and the division of occupational health and safety. Schwarzenegger said he hopes the various agencies will work together under the new initiative, dubbed the Economic and Employment Enforcement Coalition.

"It's the first time that we are trying to put all the agencies together," the governor said. He likened the unit to the federal Department of Homeland Security, created to improve communication and cooperation between agencies doing similar work.

Advocates for garment workers said the new effort was unlikely to make a difference because the state doesn't have enough money or resources devoted to enforcing current laws.

"Even if you dress it up and give it a new hat, you still can't do the work that needs to be done," said Kimi Lee, director of the Garment Workers Center, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles that works to organize and educate workers.

Schwarzenegger said the new unit will focus solely on state laws, not immigration rules enforced by the federal government.

"Those are two different issues. We are not concentrating here on immigration at all," he told reporters after touring the Blue Cop jeans factory.

One Blue Cop employee, pattern-maker Josephine Rubio, said a number of co-workers are illegal immigrants and the employer didn't ask for citizenship documents when she was hired about six months ago.

"This company has many people with no papers, right now," said Rubio, a U.S. citizen who immigrated from Mexico more than three decades ago. Asked who didn't have immigration documents, she swept her hand across the airy factory filled with sewing machines and jeans stacked higher than a person.

"All over," she said, adding that she thought highly of the company and didn't want to lose her $14-per-hour job - high-paying for Los Angeles' garment industry.

Two other workers interviewed at the factory said they were also U.S. citizens.

One, Armando Pateno, said a friend, an undocumented immigrant, works at a smaller jeans factory in the city of Commerce and had complained of a lack of safety and minimum wage pay. Pateno said other garment businesses exploit illegal immigrants.

"They get people without papers, they don't have insurance. They pay minimum," said Pateno, who works in the shipping department at Blue Cop and said he likes his $9-per-hour job.

Lee estimated that about half of all employees in the Los Angeles garment industry are illegal immigrants.

"It's not necessarily the labor laws or the factories," she said. "It's really the industry itself, where it's dependent on this underground economy, and therefore doesn't look to see what's going on."

Operators of the Blue Cop factory in this industrial Los Angeles suburb were caught by state investigators late last year underpaying workers who are paid per garment produced.

The company was "very eager" to cooperate and comply with state laws, company chief operating officer Peyman Dadmehr said. He said workers were given back-pay this year following an internal audit, but declined to say how much they were paid. State investigators also suggested other changes, he said, and the company has moved to improve its safety conditions.

Rick Rice, undersecretary of the state labor and work force development agency, said state officials were not interested in the immigration status of workers at the factory.

"We enforce labor laws across the board regardless of labor status," he said. "Because if we didn't enforce across the board it would be an incentive for certain employers to hire illegals rather than ordinary citizens."

The company was "very eager" to cooperate and comply with state laws, company chief operating officer Peyman Dadmehr said. He said workers were given back-pay this year following an internal audit, but declined to say how much they were paid. State investigators also suggested other changes, he said, and the company has moved to improve its safety conditions.

They were eager to comply only because they got caught, and thought it would get them leniency from the investigators. However if they still have illegals they still have a lot of cleaning up to do.