Computer 'raid' in Vernon leaves factory workers devastated

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: LA Times

No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn't a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers.
A desktop raid" is how the workers' representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario.

Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided "invalid or fraudulent" Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-desktop-raid12-2009jun12,0,783064.story?track=rss

---

there are 260 jobs for US citizens $10 an hour

[Xipe Totec]

1. Yea, let's see who steps up.

It certainly is a good test case.

If 260 hard working Americans step up ant take these jobs, I'll be the first to applaud the actions of our government.

If, on the other hand, the plant is forced to shut down, and more American jobs are lost as a result of this action, I will be most unhappy.

[Doremus]

9. Why are you unsure?

Union jobs, 10 bucks an hour presumably with benefits?

Around here, they would literally be mobbed with THOUSANDS of applicants. Hell, we've had 10,000 hopefuls show up just for stupid job FAIRS.

[Xipe Totec]

10. It's a testable proposition

We don't need to argue, we just need to wait and see what happens.

If it's the right call, the jobs will be filled. If not the plant will shut down.

All we have to do is let it play out.

Simple.

[Doremus]

42. Looks like your test has already been graded: FAIL

According to a post downthread:

"all 260 positions were filled by workers with valid SSNs during the 60 day period, with the replacements hired as part-timers and brought full-time when the 60 days expired."

No plant shutdown, no jobs Americans are 'too good to do.'

How surprising. :eyes:

[AlphaCentauri]

46. there is no proof whatsoever those hired were US citizens

in the meet packing cases they did substituted some immigrants with other immigrants, some times with homeless with serious health problems like mental illness or TB, too soon to judge.

[MH1]

54. According to the article, the plant is now using E-Verify

so that means the new hires would have valid SSN's. Does one have to be a US citizen to have an SSN? What about valid green card holders?

In any case I feel for the kids of the fired workers - they have no control over the situation. I think it would have been better if the company would have given ample warning about what was going to happen so employees with SSN problems could try to find jobs elsewhere or at least make some plans for their families. But overall I think verifying SSNs is the right thing to do.

[DBoon]

18. Cleveland != Los Angeles

In California, the minimum wage is $8 per hour. There is a good reason for this, having to do with the local cost of living.

Do you think people would be standing in line for jobs that pay $2/hr over McDonalds?

[Coyote_Bandit]

21. I know some Americans that

do some damn nasty, dangerous, dirty jobs for relatively little compensation.

I'm thinking of one young fellow I know who works 14 to 16 hour days, 7 days a week for 18 months at a time filling a job function that has been featured on Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs tv show. Thing is, this young fellow is actually very well off financially. He doesn't have to do this kind of work. But he does and he enjoys it.

You may not be willing to get your hands dirty - but there are Americans who do in fact fill these kinds of jobs. And there are many others who would happily take those jobs if they were located in close proximity to where they live. You'd know that if you had any awareness of the poverty and challenges of rural America.

[Xipe Totec]

23. Let's put that to the test.

This is as good a point as any.

We can argue till we're blue in the face, or we can watch and see what happens in this particular test case.

It's simple, really, all we have to do is sit back and watch to see what happens...

[Xipe Totec]

24. PS

You don't know me, so let's not talk about who's gotten his hand dirtier.

You would be surprised at the jobs I've had to do, but that is irrelevant to to this discussion.

[Coyote_Bandit]

25. I do know

that you have insulted some hard working Americans.

[Xipe Totec]

26. Really?

Like who?

And who appointed you their spokesman?

[Coyote_Bandit]

30. You clearly imply that

there are some jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. You even suggest that this one little example is the perfect test to prove your point. That is an insult to every American that works long hard dirty dangerous jobs. You don't even acknowledge that these Americans exist. That is demeaning, disrespectful and just plain rude.

If you don't like the fact that I speak up for people that you completely overlook and do not even acknowledge then by all means add me to your ignore list. Please. I can assure you your rudeness just may earn you a place on mine.

[quakerboy]

29. I would agree but with stipulations

First, the disruption is going to cost the company something in and of itself. Depending on how close to the edge they are running, that may take them out, in which case the game is different.

Second, that we consider that there may be more to it than just the willingness of 260 US citizens to work at the wages offered. There is also the willingness of the management to hire them. 260 people did not work there without management knowing this was happening, and presumably they were getting something out of the deal. Something they may not get if they hired citizens.


Oh.. and third: they made food for Panda Express. Blech. That deserves some fail in and of itself.

[RandomThoughts]

2. Another consequence of years of not enforcing laws.

By not universally enforcing laws, the action becomes legal. Because business never wanted cheap illegal labor stopped, but wanted them as second class citizens as illegals, the laws on the books for decades were not enforced. And therefore were not laws anymore.

So now when they are enforced you have a bad situation where people that may have been working by using illegal social security numbers (actually a legal thing due to no enforcement) Now are suddenly out of work and other forms of security. If the laws were always followed, they would not have been in that position in the first place.

It is one of the problems with now following laws, however the problem is in the hands of those that did not enforce them before, since they actually caused the problem.

Although with compassion, there could be ways to fast track people with records of long work histories, with some penalty for using illegal Social Security numbers, and penalties for the businesses and government officials that never enforced the laws over the last 30 years and created the problems.

[imdjh]

6. Where did you ever get the idea that lax enforcement makes illegal legal?

Example:

(from wiki)

March 30, 2006: The Supreme Judicial Court upheld a 1913 Massachusetts law that prohibits non-residents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would be void in their home state. It ruled that same-sex couples domiciled in other states that expressly prohibit same-sex marriage cannot legally marry in Massachusetts, and remanded cases from New York and Rhode Island to the Superior Court to determine whether same-sex marriage is prohibited in those states.<25>

[RandomThoughts]

13. because it is true.

If a good faith attempt is not made to enforced laws uniformly, the action it says is illegal is actually legal.

Any law selectively enforced stops being an act of justice, and instead becomes an act of targeted justice, and in that is not just since it is not evenly applied. And laws that are not just are not laws, they are powers given for other reasons.

Quite simply, any law not enforced completely against all people does not exist as a law, it is a power given to control or monitor society for reasons other then justice.

It should be noted, most laws are not written to be enforced, they are written to be selectively enforced moving discretionary power to the state instead of to the concepts of equal justice.

It is entirely reasonable to suggest all laws not enforced should be removed, since they have no legal value, and only hamper things by giving the false impression that they do have legal value.


That's where I got the idea.

You may be mixing up laws for what people think are laws, things enforced by powers in an unjust system. For instance, if higher ups can not be prosecuted for crimes, then nobody can. It is pretty simple, and frees people from all state authority over them due to breach of social contract caused by unjust distribution of enforcement of laws governing society. And if taken to the extreme can justify right to revolution if such powers are claimed to actually be laws when not equally enforced across all society.

Its pretty easy to understand, if you think of things in terms of what is just, and not just what people say is the way the system works.

However current government seems to be trying to reestablish laws and trying to move away from the lawless anarchy of the Bush years.

[imdjh]

14. I thought you meant as a matter of law.

If a good faith attempt is not made to enforced laws uniformly, the action it says is illegal is actually legal.

As a matter of law, this is not true. Call-girl prostitution is just as illegal as street prostitution, even if if police resources are rarely and certainly not equally allocated to busting callgirls.


Quite simply, any law not enforced completely against all people does not exist as a law, it is a power given to control or monitor society for reasons other then justice.

It should be noted, most laws are not written to be enforced, they are written to be selectively enforced moving discretionary power to the state instead of to the concepts of equal justice.

It is entirely reasonable to suggest all laws not enforced should be removed, since they have no legal value, and only hamper things by giving the false impression that they do have legal value.


That's where I got the idea.

The above is philosophy not law.

[RandomThoughts]

22. Agreed, but for laws to be enforceable they must be based on some thought.

If it is just arbitrary rules, then it can not be called laws, since the term 'law' also has a connotation of justice.

I do understand the symantics of it. However, I got to think that just because it is called a law is not enough for to consider it valid and just.

As a matter of law, this is not true. Call-girl prostitution is just as illegal as street prostitution, even if if police resources are rarely and certainly not equally allocated to busting callgirls.

The distribution of punishment in society is not equally distributed, so they are not laws, they are powers that people in government have over others in society outside of social contract. Since they are not equally enforced.

Now if society agreed in the differential of prosecution then that would be part of the social contract and in the law when it was written, but the statute does not have that part written into it, so selective prosecution is not enforcing a law, it is undermining the law by changing it to a non social sanctioned application and making it one where an official can use it for his own means based on whatever reason he thinks just, instead of because of an obligation to justice.

If the law is not equally enforced then the law gives a false impression.


However if part of the societal contract is discretionary powers to prosecute by elected or appointed officials like DAs then it can be said that their discretionary powers are approved by the social contract, so there is that argument to it. And many times discretionary powers can be a big boon to compassion, but it should be known that is how it is applied, and that application should past the test of best for society and not best for a small group in society.

[notadmblnd]

3. I've seen a marked decrease in the Hispanic population in the area I live

The landscaping companies are actually hiring local young men. Of course the pay is much less now. When my son was working for a local immigrant the last couple of summers, he was being paid 10 dollars an hour cash. My nephew that recently went to work for one of these companies is working for 8.75 and hes on the payroll with taxes and such taken out.

[imdjh]

17. I've heard the same thing about the northern South.

My cousin is a contractor. He says that "Mexicans" (and yes, he uses it generically) are disappearing, some going to Canada.

[ddiver]

4. There will be 1000 applicants for these jobs in less than a week.

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. The CEO should be in jail.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. Because his employees provided fraudulent SS numbers, really?

[imdjh]

16. I'm not sure how this works.

Since I have never worked under an illegal social security number or alias, I don't know if the guy we all know and love as Hector Rodriguez used his real name on his employee paperwork, or if he handed the boss something listing himself as Michael O'Hara with a wink.

While it's possible for someone to have a name which doesn't match his ethnicity, an entire factory full of people who don't match their names would put it somewhat on the employer.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

19. Invalid or fraudulent.

They may have used their real names and simply given false numbers. That's likely what drew the attention of the IRS.

David

[aquart]

38. Interesting. Where is the money?

Money was paid into Social Security on these numbers. Where is it?

Have illegal workers been propping up Social Security all this time?

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

40. I wonder if they have any tax refunds coming.

[newspeak]

55. yes, I am a former employee of SSA

I reviewed retirement claims where their earnings statements had agriculture credits. The claimants stated they'd never worked in agriculture--someone was using their SS number and the earnings was on their statement. Now, this was back in the seventies. Yes, SSA is also getting money from illegal workers using other SS numbers.

[OwnedByFerrets]

36. Because hiring illegals is .....well, illegal....if the CEOs

were put in jail, our immigration problem would DISAPPEAR.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

39. So you have some evidence that he knew about the fraud being perpetrated? Call the IRS.

[OwnedByFerrets]

48. Thats what courts of law are for

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

52. He fired the people when he found out they were working under false SS numbers.

What law did he break?

[imdjh]

7. What PR genius thought printing the protest sign in Spanish was a good idea?

Assuming, of course, that the intent is to rally citizen sympathy.

[AlphaCentauri]

11. probably in LA there are many citizens who speak spanish

:shrug:

[imdjh]

15. I presumed their intent was to garner sympathy outside the Spanish speaking community.

But if they wanted to do that, then they wouldn't be playing the "immigration enforcement is racist" bullshit so popular with the Stolen Continent types.

http://www.mexica-movement.org/

[AlphaCentauri]

27. I know some native americans that could qualified as "Stolen Continent types"

I can't blame native americans, there are history books about it

[DBoon]

20. many citizens here speak Spanish

and when you talk about deporting "illegals" you are talking about shipping out someone's aunt or grandmother.

People who care about their immediate family don't take kindly to folks who want to deport their close family after years of being otherwise solid law-abiding citizens

[imdjh]

28. Keyword "otherwise" and...

.... illegals needs no quotation marks- they are or they aren't despite the best efforts of some to blur the lines between legal and illegal aliens.

[w4rma]

12. Very good. (nt)

[DCKit]

31. I feel for the people who lost their jobs.

But the jobs never should have been on the table to begin with. Most of those people wouldn't have entered the U.S. in the first place if there were no employers looking for cheap, illegal labor.

If the government doesn't penalize this employer (or any other) for hiring illegals, it'll simply be a game of Wack-a-Mole as the employees keep getting chased from one job to another and losing their paychecks and protections.

[Big_Mike]

33. Only one problem there, I think

that it is illegal for the employer to check immigration status. Not sure about it though. Does anyone else know?

[imdjh]

43. I had to show my birth certificate.

When I transferred from one city to another back in about 1988, I had to provide my employer with a certified copy of my birth certificate. This was a pain in the ass, because I hadn't needed it in so long that I had no idea where it was. Fortunately, I was near the city of my birth and could spend an entire day in this task. I believe I had to show it again when I got my first mortgage. My memory could be failing me on the last part.

[high density]

47. I've had to prove I am a US citizen

e.g. provide passport or birth certificate as part of the employment process. It seems reasonable.

[OwnedByFerrets]

37. Thank you for "getting it"

[imdjh]

44. Of course you do. Anyone who had a heart would (apologies to Bacharach)

But like many seemingly harmless acts or minor crimes, when done by millions of people there is considerable harm. Some old man sneaking out in the middle of the night to keep his beloved lawn alive during the drought wouldn't make much difference, but a hundred thousand old men sneaking water to their lawns is ten million gallons.

One million illegal aliens in Los Angeles is one million showers a day, three million toilet flushes a day, one million loads of wash a week, plus dish washing and drinking water. We're looking at some 50,000,000 gallons of water per day just for the illegals in Los Angeles, a hundred million if you use the national average.

The costs of public services for the illegal aliens in Los Angeles alone is staggering. Imagine if 1,000,000 of the poorest Americans moved to Hawaii. Not even a foreign country, a US state. One million of the poorest Americans decided to move to Hawaii, which as far as I know would be perfectly legal. What do you think the response would be? It would be an environmental disaster, a social disaster, an economic disaster, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the people of Hawaii would regard it as an invasion.

[dysfunctional press]

51. "If the government doesn't penalize this employer (or any other) for hiring illegals..."

what evidence is there that the company knowingly hired illegals?

[Big_Mike]

32. According to the company spokesman,

a Board member and owner of a Public Relations firm, the company just took the numbers given by the 260 employees. The IRS did a full audit of the company, finding all financial data correct, but in the W-2 review, the employees' SSNs were bounced due to fictitious and/or incorrect numbers. The employees, members of the IFW Local 770, were given 60 days to submit corrections. No employees submitted corrections. Under IRS criminal regulations, the company had to terminate any employee who did not satisfy the requirement for a bad number. They terminated personnel with up to 19 years experience at the plant.

According to the spokesman, the company had no recourse but to terminate the employees or have company officers face 5 years jail time plus $10K per person found with bad numbers. Each employee who remained employed would face 1 year imprisonment and $100K fines themselves.

The spokesman said the company personnel dept. had switched to e-verify in hiring a few months back. Each new employee who failed the verification by e-verify was terminated, and the union made no complaint. In the case of the 260 employees, the company and the union are going into arbitration, but he held out little hope for the employees. He stated that there is no way the Arbitrator can require the company to break US law and re-hire the terminated personnel.

At least here, no one has been deported. However, where they go after losing good, stable union jobs is one hell of a question. I would hope they banked some money to make it through like everyone else these days.

BTW, all 260 positions were filled by workers with valid SSNs during the 60 day period, with the replacements hired as part-timers and brought full-time when the 60 days expired.

I heard the spokesman on the John and Ken radio show on KFI AM 640 today at around 3:15. The two radio jocks are very anti-immigrant, but the spokesman seemed genuinely concerned about the employees.

[AlphaCentauri]

34. isn't it sad to see a person who works 19 years been dispose

without any benefit or compensation, that must be immoral.

[imdjh]

41. It's like any other lie - destined to be revealed

Let's use another scenario, ripped from the news as it were.

Joe lied on his resumé. He doesn't really have a degree in business management. The fact that he has been working at Yourbank for 19 years and has gotten five promotions pretty much proves that such a degree wasn't actually necessary, it was just an arbitrary requirement. His lie is revealed and he's tossed out on his butt. Is that immoral?

[AlphaCentauri]

50. Clinton did lie and did not lost any of his benefits

why a person has to lost al it's job compensations for a lie that did not have anything to do with his skills.

[greengestalt]

35. I'm for enforcing immigration laws

And we don't need no stinkin' fence...


Simply put, the IRS is good at finding somebody who fixes cars on the side or sells too many flowers at the farmer's market and doesn't report it and goes down on them hard. It harasses priests because it calls "BullSh-t" on their reported income...

BUT---

They usually can't tell if John Doe is a Computer engineer in Seattle and he's a seasonal laborer in California, a Carpenter's assistant in Florida and a Maid in NYC by SSN# though John Doe #1 might get a severe audit over that...


Kosher as Ham on Rye...


The illegals must be deported. The simplest, humanest way is to just frequently check the books of employers who hire them and enforcing existing laws. We don't need no "Profiling" either, just check for low wage jobs and find a high percentage of illegals. Spoil the pot, there is no work for them. The employers that hire them are criminals and traitors. They help a failed state (mainly Mexico) have a 'pressure relief' and they commit the "Divide and Conquer" crime against humanity by having one group of desperate people being used to drive down the standard of living of another group of people. The other group of people is us, the non-millionaire Americans. The rich elite want us poor and desperate so they can hurt us to punish us for ever daring to demand we deserve a good life even if we aren't born to an elite family. They just want the "Lower classes fighting" so they don't see the whole picture.


This will force wages higher and take from the rich elite far more than an army of "Communists" with no mess over laws and enforcement. This is where even I agree with "Captialism" where the parasites have to actually live in the "Free Market" in this case one that will then have a shortage of labor to jobs needed. Simply put, there would be by far enough jobs to employ every "Unemployed" person twice. People just needing work to keep a home over their heads will do the the basic jobs, but they'll bring higher wage expectations and knowledge of civil and legal rights. Homeless people will quickly find a way off the streets and even the habitual ones (through choice/addiction/mental illness) will have more frequent casual labor to scrape by. In most cases employers will simply pay more and treat people better to keep anybody. Workers that do a good job will then have many opportunities to move up.


And I bear no hate or malice to the Mexican people. I won't judge a man till I stand in his shoes and I advocate my views because I hope never to have to in their case. I feel that if I was a poor Mexican I'd want to rebel against my corrupt parasite government but see it as a futile, foolish game where I'd likely get killed quickly and my family would need me. So I'd do what a man would do in such a situation and take whatever work I could get so I could send some money to my family. I'd go north and endure being hated and spat upon by both the people who's wages I lowered and the people who paid me to do their filthy work and work much harder than any of their countrymen would do and far cheaper.


Removing even that option is a terrible thing, but ultimately the right thing. Without the option of going north, they will all join Mexico's decades-long civil war. They'll fight as hard as they work and change things in Mexico. Their government, their social situation, probably their population problem as well... We should all be advocates of this. If we see employers hiring illegals, report it and demand the place be investigated. If they don't, go to city council and demand the wages of police be reduced for ignoring real crimes when they ticket normal law abiding people like lunatic Christians give Chick Tracts. But to the Mexicans, be kind. And when they are going to go home, help them. Give them some money and food and wish them well, give them rides if you can, and any extra 'protection' if you can spare it.


This is what we as Americans should encourage:
1. In the spirit of our Revolutionary Founding Fathers to encourage people to cast off the chains of unjust government.
-and-
2. A final "Remember the Alamo!". Not a racist thing, a political thing. The current elite who run Mexico are the heirs of those that butchered the men at the Alamo. Let 'em all either stain the pyramids or run hide in coffeshops in Spain. I've got nothing against them personally, my favorite film maker, Del Toro, is one such person I suppose...

[Crowman1979]

45. It would also be advisable to at least give illegal immigrants a pamphlet in their own language...

...in case they want to know how to immigrate to the USA legally.

[Strong Atheist]

49. Belated Welcome to DU!

:toast:

[Joanne98]

53. Good

[Igel]

56. It's what a lot of people want: make the employer the center of

enforcement instead of conducting raids.

Of course, the company gave the employees time to rectify their records. I did payroll for a small non-profit, and once we got back a strange form saying that some names and numbers didn't match. It was fixed quickly enough: A middle name was expanded from "A." to "Allan", for example, to bring the record that I filed with the IRS in line with the SSA's record. No biggie. In once case the SSN had been transposed on one form. So I filed an amended form; this was in the days when we typed such things.

Now, there are reasons for not being able to correct them. For example, a worker may not know what needs to be done--then I'd expect the union to give some sort of useful advice there, and for the company to be at least minimally helpful. Or, more likely, the name and number really didn't match up: the number was made up or stolen, the name fictitious or altered.

This is a non-issue.

Oddly, a few people don't seem to like it. But hiring an illegal immigrant by itself doesn't bring any penalty: *knowingly* hiring an illegal immigrant is illegal and has a penalty associated with it. What some apparently want is just to punish companies for, well, being. This is silly.