QuoteFeds: 100 workers at Duval courthouse site provide fake ID documents
More than a quarter of the workers at the new Duval County Courthouse construction site provided false identification documents to the city, authorities said.
Federal officials discovered about 100 fake documents after looking at the paperwork the city started collecting three weeks ago to crack down on arrests of undocumented workers.
The city was informed of the federal checks Monday , the same day four more undocumented workers were arrested near the construction site, according to immigration officials.
Nineteen illegal workers have been arrested in three incidents since September.
A top aide to Mayor John Peyton asked city attorneys Monday to determine whether the continued problems could be considered a breach of contract by Turner Construction, the contractor on the $350 million project, or any of the firms hired by Turner.
full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-11-09/story/feds_100_workers_at_duval_courthouse_site_provide_fake_id_documents
I for one am shocked. Shocked! Who'd-a thunk something would be amiss regarding this courthouse project?
more than a quarter of the workers??? That's a bit extreme... I can accept a handful slipping through, but 100?? i love taxes!! >:(
Another failure of the Peyton Administration in managing the workers on the site. You'd think that after all these failures, one after the other, they would have competent people working in the City.
Then again, this is the Peyton Administration, beget by scandal after scandal.
So many of our local people are without jobs and begging to get any sort of work they can. People don't want a handout, they want JOBS.
City of Jacksonville, take care of your own. :'(
Please don't take this as me being prejuidiced or racist, but don't tell me, but I'll bet most of the workers are foreign or mexican; and we know that they will work for less than the American workers. I don't have a problem with American companies doing this (except it's taking away jobs from Americans), but at least do a background check, etc. to ensure that these workers are legit and legal and not illegal refugees from other countries. Kind of pisses me off a bit when I know that Americans are being refused jobs by American Companies over foreigners, and then the foreigners are found to be illegal aliens or immigrants and shouldn't be in this country.
Heights Unknown
You know the Mayor's trying to save a buck here and there, since the City doesn't have any more money...call it "International Economics" ;D
The city really doesn't have a dog in this hunt. It is the contractors that hire the workers.
The prospective workers give you the green card, ssan, and driver's license. It meets the requirements and seems legal. Then the feds come in and check ssan against the data base and find out Juan Valdez has Mary Smith's ssan. They get arrested for using Mary's ssan and you get a black eye. You can check that but it is above and beyond the current requirements.
The myth that foreign workers will work for less money is not always valid, especially in heavy commercial construction. The key though is that they will work. The work is often hard and uncomfortable but better than what they have back home. They often are "travelers" and will want all the hours they can get and are willing to work 7 days a week from sun to sun. Families are back home and they are just working and sending the money back.
They are not stupid either. They get into "crews" and go for the best wages they can get in that market. The crew is usually led by the English speaker who drives. Besides commercial construction wages are above minimum wage.
Then again many are not as skilled as they profess, but that is true all around.
They come from all over. I've had workers from Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Croatia, Canada and Ireland.
This is not surprising, but disappointing.
Let me be the first to say:
DEY TUK ER JERBS!
But I do echo what Overstreet said when he said this:
Quote
The myth that foreign workers will work for less money is not always valid, especially in heavy commercial construction. The key though is that they will work. The work is often hard and uncomfortable but better than what they have back home. They often are "travelers" and will want all the hours they can get and are willing to work 7 days a week from sun to sun. Families are back home and they are just working and sending the money back.
That's the truth.
Quote from: mtraininjax on November 10, 2009, 07:28:01 AM
Another failure of the Peyton Administration in managing the workers on the site. You'd think that after all these failures, one after the other, they would have competent people working in the City.
Then again, this is the Peyton Administration, beget by scandal after scandal.
so wait...everyone gets upset when the project costs too much....but illegal workers are just about always cheaper labor....makes you wonder where our values/priorities are.
As a business owner I can see the temptation to use workers who may be less expensive if not for lower wages certainly other associated costs of having an employee are less. I would think it would be obvious to all how this hurts our country.
I can see the temptation of having people willing to work 7 days a week sun to sun. That is certainly not what we want for our work force either. We as a country seem to have chosen 40 hours a week as standard. I do not want to see that become we are willing to toil every waking hour away just to compete for local jobs with those less fortunate in the world.
There are good workers here in America. I do not like the attitude that we have no work ethic if we have any pride or want of some free time.
Migrant workers are a good part of our economy but we as business owners have to keep it legal. illegal workers are a drain on our communities mostly because their illegal status prevents much of their ability to positively contribute.
Maybe if we had a tax system that did not require status, accountants, lawyers and S.S.#s to pay(V.A.T or preferably the Fair Tax based on consumption) we could have a more harmonious mix.
QuoteThe city really doesn't have a dog in this hunt. It is the contractors that hire the workers.
That is complete and utter hogwash. When the City was overbilled and had a contractor not fulfill the work at the Ed Ball building, it was the City and their project team overseeing the work. Same here, the City has a project manager overseeing the work. Every BJP project has one.
Having a few City contracts in my time, the pre-bid meetings restrict using illegal aliens on City projects. They are there in black and white, and its the city who is responsible for checking up with the contractor to make sure that the people working on the job have the proper documentation.
You can't let the City project manager off the hook for this, 100 jobs for aliens because they could not find anyone else in Jax who was willing to take a job? Min wage at least is close to 7.50 an hour, but LAW they have to pay them at least that much. Turner and the City should get 2 black eyes for this.
Yeah but that temptation (to use cheaper workers for your labor to save money) is invalid, unjust, and counter productive for our nation as a whole (in may different ways in which I will not list).
Despite the fact that these workers may not be working for less as it may appear, they are in fact working for lower wages, and, the Employers are more willing to hire them than the normal everyday, also "HARDWORKING" American. I still say give Americans the chance on these jobs despite the $15 an hour versus $9 an hour you may pay the foreigner. If you do the right thing good will come back to you. I am not saying that hiring a foreigner for less is wrong, and I am not saying do not hire foreigners, but it appears that most employers are hiring foreigners over Americans which in my mind and opinion you're also, in essence stealing and/or snuffing out your American Brother or Sister.
Heights Unknown
I worked with a guy whose father owned a potato farm in spuds. He was going on and on about how hard the illegals worked and how they never complained. I stated of course they do, what would your father do if they complained and didn't slave away. The answer of course is thier a** would be kicked off the farm or turned into INS. Illegals are a great way of getting cheap easily abused labor.
Quote from: heights unknown on November 10, 2009, 09:20:07 AM
Please don't take this as me being prejuidiced or racist, but don't tell me, but I'll bet most of the workers are foreign or mexican; and we know that they will work for less than the American workers. I don't have a problem with American companies doing this (except it's taking away jobs from Americans), but at least do a background check, etc. to ensure that these workers are legit and legal and not illegal refugees from other countries. Kind of pisses me off a bit when I know that Americans are being refused jobs by American Companies over foreigners, and then the foreigners are found to be illegal aliens or immigrants and shouldn't be in this country.
Heights Unknown
When you talk to legal immigrants, they usually get pissed about this as well.
Too many illegals using the systems to their advantage. Even the legal immigrants are having problems finding jobs.
Immigrants are the vital new blood that we need, but illegals are easily abused and exploited. During a rehabilitation project a few years ago, I noticed that a sub-contract drywall crew was showing up nights and weekends only. At first I thought that they were working on another, bigger job and fitting my project in after hours.
After getting suspicious and unhappy with the quality of the work, I was able, with my childish Spanish and a lot of repitition , to find out what was going on with the crew.
They were all illegals, young men brought here from somewhere in Texas and paid sub-standard wages with no benefits at all. They were being put up in cheap motels, five and six to a room and fed the cheapest food available. Most of their money, except for a little, was being sent back to their home countries. By working nights and weekends they were avoiding the Immigration Service and especially the State of Florida Workers Compensation Inspectors.
I did throw them off the job and reamed out my contractor for hiring such a sub-contractor, but did not have the heart to report them to the authorities. I felt by reporting this slime ball sub-contractor it would hurt the poor guys trying to send money to their families worse.
The fact of the matter is that the workers hired should be organized, living wage earning, union workers. Construction and trade unions have long been a way of ensuring highly skilled local workers for the construction industry, and projects should be estimated to include skilled domestic labor. Trying to avoid this is why less skilled illegal workers are hired, and it should be stopped. Just pay the real cost of building, using American workers.
As a side note, the US needs to support trade policies and the development of organized domestic labor and industry thought Mexico and Latin America. Latin American workers do not come here to "take jobs" but out of need, there is no reason that a country as rich in people and resources such as Mexico should not share a lifestyle comparable to Canada and the US.
350 workers total,100 illegal aliens amongst them.
I know numerous home-owning,tax paying friends in the construction industry unemployed or working part time.
Shame on you John Payton and Staff. The least you can do is run the rat bastards from Turner Construction out of town on a rail for this crime of greed and arrogance.
Our nation was so wealthy we had to allow illegal import of cheap labor..................
GideonGlib wrote: "...there is no reason that a country as rich in people and resources such as Mexico should not share a lifestyle comparable to Canada and the US."
Actually there is one primary reason. Government corruption in Mexico.
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on November 12, 2009, 12:33:03 PM
GideonGlib wrote: "...there is no reason that a country as rich in people and resources such as Mexico should not share a lifestyle comparable to Canada and the US."
Actually there is one primary reason. Government corruption in Mexico.
Corruption like that is almost guaranteed in countries that have inherited a "mercantile" system of business, i.e. you cannot do business without permission from the crown. It is an alternative system to capitalism or socialism and combines the worst aspects of both. It was the prevailing system throughout the old Spanish Colonial Empire and you still see the sad remains in most Latin American countries and the Philippines. China and Korea had similar systems with similar results until revolution and occupation changed them.
Quote350 workers total,100 illegal aliens amongst them.
I know numerous home-owning,tax paying friends in the construction industry unemployed or working part time.
Shame on you John Payton and Staff. The least you can do is run the rat bastards from Turner Construction out of town on a rail for this crime of greed and arrogance.
Agreed! TU editorial stated we are in the "Great Recession", with total unemployment running at 17.5% (includes those who lost a job, temp jobs, and those who have given up looking), which is higher than it was in 1982, when it got to 17.2%
What does Peyton do all day? Surely he would visit the Courthouse site and see how work was progressing? It is that hard to spot 100 illegals working on the jobsite and not ask the question, are all these people legal? Surely no, because that is not what "running government, like a business" is all about these days.
Immigration and Naturalization is not legally allowed on site but City of Jax Building Inspection is. You think they would've at least sent a confidential blurb upstairs about the situation. Oh silly me, It's a city project and it gets no inspection realistically. I know. I work in new or recently renovated city buildings all the time. You can't believe the silly crap or shoddy work we pay dearly for.
"running government, like a business"
yeah, an oil business.
folks, the news was clear...most of these people provided documents....they just turned out to be invalid....doubt the Mayor or anyone else outside of INS would be able to detrmine that!
Dog Walker usually hits the broader picture on the head.This thread is directly about Illegals being on our public courthouse job site.
The broader picture is why these indiscretions keep CONTINUALLY happening right under our noses, and what we could possibly do about it. I for one will blow up if I hear one more native Jax resident say (And I quote) "It's always been that way around here....Nobody's gonna do anything different about it" or the best one....."it's all about what sperm you were from" ROFLOL!!!
When is JAX BASTILLE DAY?...count me and my pitchfork in... >:(
Not that I am letting the city contractor off the hook entirely, but in all fairness he might have done everything right if it is true that he was presented with "perfect" documents and followed the hiring procedure in its entirety. Then there must be something fundamentally wrong if a SSN can be presented on an application but cannot be verifiable in real time. The onus should be with the INS to provide this verification link so that screening can be done on the fly and authorities can be immediately alerted when an infringement is detected. This being the courthouse site, we are all quick to throw the mayor and the City and the contractor under the bus but it is the failings of the INS we should be condemning.