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Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

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Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#101

Post by ravenstine »

nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

This is one of the most blatant examples of how the "Uniparty" works.

The Uniparty doesn't even require collusion, although it's not exclusive of it. Both parties can effectively collaborate against the interests of their voters through confluence of different interests sharing the same technique. At the same time, there's no way either isn't completely aware of what the other is doing.

What perpetuates this particular issue is that both sides of the Uniparty, for all intents and purposes, represent the same class of citizen whose interests are so divorced from the voters that even the petite bourgeoise isn't in on it since they are the ones whose best interest is to comply with the system as opposed to subvert it. That is unless they want to risk having the fist of God slamming down on their business for a quick buck. The only way I can see the Uniparty destabilizing is if they represented different economic classes. At best, they pretend to, but fewer and fewer people are buying that story anymore.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#102

Post by yunohn »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #79
breakingrules wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm literally currently existing in such an immigrant town. We do not have open borders. We have poorly and inconsistently enforced border patrols, which is completely different. I'm not saying there isn't a problem, I'm saying it's important to not exaggerate the problem.

> We do not have open borders

I’m assuming you are aware that no country in the world has fences or patrols of their borders to any significant length, right?

The reason is both financial/logistical infeasibility, as well as bipartisan neglect. Without cheap labor both locally and abroad, the Western world would collapse overnight.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#103

Post by steego »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #31
DeathArrow wrote: post #20

Is it legal to work in the USA if you are 13 years old?

In non farm jobs, No.

Funny you say that: When I was 13, my first real job was at a trap shooting club and it was considered “farm work”.

For less than minimum wage, I sat in a tiny concrete building down range from 5 shooters and reloaded a mechanical arm with another clay pigeon every time the other kid (sitting behind the shooters) pressed the button.

You never knew when the mechanical arm would go off and sometimes the kid outside would accidentally hit it twice so it would go off when you were reloading it, basically grazing your fingertips.

You had to keep your legs straight out for hours because lifting your knees up would mean the mechanical arm would get it.

Every once in a while, you’d hear the shot hit the trap house, which only served to remind you to wave your little red flag before you exited the house. This was especially true during the beef and beer shoots.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#104

Post by Ancapistani »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #71
nightpool wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is such an easy problem to solve" How? If someone uses a fully faked/stolen identity, with a valid SSN / passport # / etc (which every single company is required to check), how do you propose we catch them?

RealID was supposed to curtail this. They certainly made it hard enough for real citizens to get ID.

I don't know about Wisconsin, but in my state RealID is entirely optional. When you get a driver's license (or state ID/"Non-driver's license") you have the option to have your fingerprints taken to receive a RealID compliant ID, or not, in which case your ID is valid for only state purposes.

I'm a natural-born US citizen, and I opted not to get a RealID-compliant state ID. I have no need for it. I use my driver's license for most things and my passport card when I fly domestic. A RealID-compliant state ID offers me no benefit.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#105

Post by ethanbond »

Ancapistani wrote: post #98
throw93 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. How is this related to the story? The story is about companies using children as workers in hazardous job. It’s illegal regardless of their documentation status. Iowa has proposed bill to to legalize exactly this. This is happening because companies don’t want to pay fair wage.

> How is this related to the story? The story is about companies using children as workers in hazardous job. It’s illegal regardless of their documentation status. I don't know about this particular case, but I don't know of any large business that's purposefully hiring children, or people not legally able to work in the US. They're hiring immigrants who are providing false documents. If you're already using false do…

It is not even close to true that most employers don’t know their employees are illegal immigrants. Your view on this is wildly out of touch with reality. Describing it even as “open secret” makes it sound more secretive than it is in practice.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#106

Post by throw93 »

nostromo wrote: post #77
throw93 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably the children in question lied about their age when they signed up. That’s not true though. The company knew exactly what they were doing and still they went ahead and doubled down on it. Excerpt from article: “Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adul…

> That’s not true though. There's not enough information here to know either way. What system flagged them, when, and based off of what information?

The agency had enough information to prosecute and fine the company. I would rather trust a govt agency than a for profit company whose only motivation is earn profit by any means necessary.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#107

Post by courseofaction »

ggreer wrote: post #82
aaomidi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fines for doing this should not depend on company revenue or profit. It should be that every single exec in charge of that company is never allowed to have any decision making power again in any industry. After a substantial jail time. Every exec involved here should be personally liable too, and be forced to have their assets sold to cover a huge pay out to these kids. These kids should never have to work again…

Tons of teens would happily lie about their age if it meant they never had to work again. Heck, many parents would encourage that behavior.

The companies would execute them on the spot if it was legal and profitable. I'm happy with a company being required to do due diligence on age. If they can't prove they're old enough to work, they can't work.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#108

Post by yunohn »

Ancapistani wrote: post #84
FireBeyond wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago in the South, coordinated ICE raids of a bunch of chicken "factories" owned by Tyson netted 800-900 arrests of undocumented employees. Many of them testified that Tyson encouraged and coached them, even provided written instructions on how to deal with various employment/taxation things as someone undocumented. Asked about this at a press conference, and whether there were "any plans to issue fines, o…

I live in the area where Tyson has most of its poultry operations, and I know a few people who work for them fairly well - including a couple who are working there under false identities due to immigration status. Tyson knows. They couldn't _not_ know. They seem to maintain an acceptable level of "plausible deniability" at least, and I've not seen any evidence that they're explicitly allowing it to happen, or even th…

> even that it's their preference

> they'd lose a big part of their experienced workforce and would incur significant additional labor costs as the market adjusted to the change

The second statement clearly disproves the first one.

Tyson could get Americans (TM) if they paid significantly more and moved them in to rural areas; but it’s much easier to employ cheap immigrants and act dumb.

Disclaimer: No judgement passed on immigrants, only on capitalism and stupid politicians.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#109

Post by ethanbond »

legitster wrote: post #62
oramit wrote: post #19

"Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department assessed PSSI $15,138 for each minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The amount is the maximum civil money penalty allowed by federal law." Wow, I knew that labor laws in the US were toothless but to have it spelled out like this is so depressing. A max penalty of ~15k per violation, just bravo team, bravo.

??? - $15k per violation is still quite a bit of money. This is an order of magnitude more expensive than the pennies they saved by looking the other way. The point of the fines is not to force the company into insolvency - if anything, the DOL would rather incentivize companies into compliance with labor laws than squash them and spread bad practices into harder-to-monitor industries.

It seems hard to believe that employing an actual child would save you less than $1.5k over, say, 6 or 12 months.

Re: Over 100 kids illegally employed in hazardous jobs, contractor pays $1.5M fine

#110

Post by marcusverus »

andsoitis wrote: post #81
nostromo wrote: post #21

There are millions of undocumented workers in the US using fake identities to get jobs. Both major parties support this system. Some Republican interests enjoy the access to dirt-cheap labor. Some Democratic interests want immigrants to be able to find jobs despite it being illegal to employ them. So we end up with a system where employers have no easy way to verify that an employee is who they say they are and has a…

> Both major parties support this system. Can this also be more simply stated: Americans support this.

No need to speculate, there's a lot of polling data on this. Broadly speaking, Americans want A) work visas for immigrants who're here now (75% agree), B) immigration status checks by employers (84% agree), and C) stopping illegal immigration immediately (77%+ agree).

A) Would you favor or oppose each of the following as part of legislation to address the issue of illegal immigration? How about -- Expanding the number of short-term work visas for immigrants whose job skills are needed in the U.S.?

Favor - 76%

Oppose - 23%

B) Would you favor or oppose each of the following as part of legislation to address the issue of illegal immigration? How about -- Requiring business owners to check the immigration status of workers they hire?

Favor - 84%

Oppose - 16%

C) How important is it to you that the government takes steps this year to... [control] U.S. borders to halt the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.?

Extremely important - 43%

Very important - 34%

Moderately important - 16%

Not that important - 7%

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx

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