Posted on 04/22/2006 11:06:00 AM PDT by radar101
When Peter Smith, a senior immigration enforcement agent in upstate New York, led the raid on a cavernous IFCO Systems wood products plant just outside of Albany this week, he was taken aback by what he saw.
"There was a lot of drilling, cutting, dismantling of old pallets, pneumatic nail guns, power saws. Most of these guys were working in jeans, tennis shoes, short-sleeve shirts; some had sawdust in their hair," he said. "No legal facility would let workers work in those conditions."
The plant, which opened in 2004, specializes in pallet retrieval and recycling, and has listed Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. as among its customers.
The investigation began with an insider's tip: IFCO workers at the Guilderland plant were seen tearing up their W-2 tax forms, and a company manager explained that they were illegal immigrants and would not be paying taxes.
A day later, immigration officials got a tip that IFCO managers were arranging for illegal immigrants to be transported from Texas to the New York plant.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
>>Most of these guys were working in jeans, tennis shoes, short-sleeve shirts; some had sawdust in their hair,"<<
Oh Dear!
>>federal investigators put together a picture of how IFCO managers allegedly bent, broke and ignored the rules.<
Imagine what they would find if they looked at the White House. Violations too numerous to list.
Why hire illegals to do this work? If illegals can work under these conditions we can get children to do the work for even less.
Politics.
In other words, they were not following OSHA rules for workplace safety. But I guess following basic safety rules is too much for you, regardless of whether or not it's illegals that's involved.
Well. there's a coincidence. My 12 year old is looking to do light housework and yard work for extra spending cash. Yeserday, I told her to put on her flyers that she is cheaper than illegals and she speaks English.
Sounds like EVERY building construction site I have ever been too.
"Why hire illegals to do this work? If illegals can work under these conditions we can get children to do the work for even less."
Boy, is that a great point. With the illegals making all workplace laws moot, why not employ children? Even better, illegal slave children! ! !
IFCO would have had to supply these men with hardhats and workboots, not something they would choose to do.
Have you ever worked on a ranch? Strung a barbed wire fence on rough ground? Tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirts and gloves are the common attire for the working owners.
Well, the short sleeve shirts are probably against the OSHA rules, but are also probably fairly common. The tennis shoes OTOH, are stupid in such an environment, but also arean't unheard of in perfectly legal facilities. Jeans are plenty of protection (practically speaking), and I defy anyone to work in such an environment,legal or illegal, *without* getting sawdust in their hair.
No mention is made of probably the most important safety item for such work, eye protection.
FWIW, I worked in a plant that made wood windows and doors, in the lumber mill part of the operation. I wore a T shirt, jeans and leather, but non steel toed, shoes. No eye protection, no hard hard, nada. That was the summer of '68. We had a few injured workers, as a result of their extracurricular, and quite drunken activities while off work.
I work in jeans and sometimes T shirts and sneakers. In the summer I may even wear short at work. BTW I work in a high tech product development group. As for having sawdust in my hair.... if I only had hair....
Has the world lost it's sense of perspective and proportion?
Bush's low poll numbers is the reason for this raid, IMO.
This W-2 earnings info submitted by the company has piled up year-after-year in the SSA's Earnings Suspense File of unmatched SSN data.
This company is not alone. There are tens of thousands of companies submitting W-2 earnings data with millions of unmatched SSNs.
It's lying politician pukes' B.S. that Washington doesn't know who they are.
We don't need shiny new high-tech SSN cards that go PING!
WE NEED ENFORCEMENT!
Can I propose the next raid be on Tyson Foods?
...One result was the filing of criminal charges against seven IFCO managers including Robert Belvin, James Rice and Dario Salzano of the Guilderland facility; Abelino Chicas, an assistant general manager in Houston; and Michael Ames, a general manager at a Boston-area plant. The company says it has placed the managers on temporary leave.
These guys consider themselves Americans?
You can't tell me that upper management didn't know what was going on. One walk through one plant would tell you the story.
Also, you'll hear how hard working these people are. What they actually mean is that they work for peanuts and don't complain.
Not precisely correct. They would not be filing tax returns. You think the government gives the money withheld from their paychecks back to the company if an employee doesn't file a return? Heck given that their pay was low, they probably would have gotten most or all of it back, perhaps even more under the earned income tax credit.
Pardon my cynicism, but I wonder if this raid wasn't the result of IFCO Systems not contributing $$$'s into some pol's coffers.
Before anyone decides to flame me, think Tyson. Then think Bill Gates, and heaven knows who else the goverment has leaned on!
Freakin' great idea! We can import Chinese kids to do it and we'd be culturally sensitive to their traditions.
A ranch isn't a factory. I don't know what OSHA has for regulations on farms, but I do know it is dangerous, hard work. The simple matter is that if one of these illegals was injured and the company did not provide appropriate safety equipment, that illegal would wind up owning the company in a lawsuit. Moreover, the owners and/or CEO would be in jail for negliegent homicide if someone died as a result of poor safety practices. Today, managers and CEOs can be held personally liable and criminally responsible for injuries if they knowingly failed to appropriately address safety issues.
An informant triggered the nationwide sweep. Investigators say a plant in New York flaunted the law and mistreated its illegal workers.
No. They flouted the law. They weren't waving the law around in people's faces, going "Look what I got!" They were brazenly breaking it. I know a lot of people get the two words confused. I know that Merriam-Webster acknowledges that a lot of people get the two words confused. So? Just because a lot of people are sloppy and confused doesn't mean guys who write for a living are entitled to be. The copy editors at the Times ought to know better.
"Take my wife.. please!" Henny Youngman.
"[T]he IFCO crackdown marks the beginning of a new period of tougher work-site enforcement." A lying Washington "it all counts toward thirty" government employee repeating a lying politician puke's B.S.
(There are tens of thousands of companies and millions of ILLEGAL workers -- fat chance much more will be done about it. BTW, we CANNOT afford for ILLEGAL workers to "pay" back taxes -- their earned income credit checks would drain Treasury.)
The sad part of the story is that hours later, all the illegals arrested were released. ICE didn't have holding facilities for all of them, so this was all just for show. Bush has to toss a token enforcement tidbit to the gullible Republican base (who is not following the leader on this sellout of our sovreignty.)
Funny isn't it? The Times never does say what was really behind the raids.
I agree with your take, but I think Bush also believes this will quiet the base and convince us he is serious about immigration reform. It wouldn't suprise me if it was also intended to arouse the illegals and the open borders lobby to push harder for fake reform.
I don't believe or trust Bush (or the Democrats) one inch on this issue and if he thinks this is going to help convince me he is serious about the issue he is wrong. In fact, I consider it blatant image manipulation with no intent at all for real enforcement, so he has alienated me even further.
Next.
ping
Nah, we have to save them for food. /Swiftian satire mode
This is a very important point, many do not realize that ICE cannot just raid any work place they or anyone else may suspect of hiring illegals. Immigration has the authority to search for and apprehend illegals and employers only near the border on mere suspicion.
Away from the border areas, Immigration must build a case similiar to what every other LE in this country in arresting anyone. They must have enough evidence to convince a judge to sign warrants.
It is very important to report employers who knowingly hire illegals. Please don't waste ICEs time by reporting suspicions, but if you are or were in a position to know that a business makes a practice of hiring illegals you should report that business and the facts you have to ICE.
Can Nicole Gaouette tell her ass from an industrial hole in the ground. I doubt it. Her closest brush with industry was a union first father and reading the Grapes of Wrath.
I agree completely. A reporter for a big city newspaper should at least be able to write correctly. Being a liberal moron is no excuse for bad writing.
Microsoft employs only legals - at least, they pay their buddies in Washington to up the H1B visa numbers and get workers for scratch - legally. Obviously this company hadn't caught onto the game yet.
How about a raid on every construction company, Foundation repair companies, Roofing companies, and last but not least landscape companies.
VERY GOOD! Funny but true.
"How about a raid on every construction company, Foundation repair companies, Roofing companies, and last but not least landscape companies."
Well, that's sort of prohibited by the 4th Amendment of our Constitution. If you think about it, you'll realize that our protections against being "raided" by the government are pretty valuable.
Before such raids can occur, there must be probable cause. That's how it works in the USA. I wouldn't change that for anything.
It's just one step from this kind of raid to a raid on your house to see if you have "illegal" firearms there.
The local IFCO plant has a classified ad today...
for 20 workers.
Now THERE'S a freemarket idea!
What, no 3 piece suits??
How about when they're raidin' to just wear their uniforms to the hotels where they are lodging and watch the housekeeping staff disappear?!!
Window dressing. Without a decent interval, Frist comes prancing back on stage, babbling about a redux of the immigration bill, with a whole 2 billion in superduper double secret border control, along with...(cough)...a plan for accommodating current "immigrants".
These transparent schmucks are too stupid for the world of online info dissemination.
LOL! Too funny. Scatter.......
Yes, but is it in English?
I wonder if we could get the requirement changed where BP and ICE agent must where their uniforms when in a public place?
It's good economic sense to follow OSHA guidelines. Unsafe operating conditions are also inefficient operations. It's cheaper to pay and plan a little for safety up front than to pay more after a problem happens. The company I work for has operations around the world. It's safety policy is simple. All plants will meet or exceed all safety regulations. Any given plant, regardless of location, will meet the safety requirements of every country where we operate, even in third world countries. The reason is simple: process uniformity. We are minimizing variations caused by different safety protocols in differnt areas. It hasn't hurt our bottom line and this aspect of the company is also favored by investors. You can do things on the cheap and skimp ion safety, but it is not a great long term strategy.
You know the saying "follow the money". Watch Senator Frist in this. His family stands to make a ton of money. His father started HCA, Hospital Corporation of America. I think they own something like 300 hospitals in the US. They have made a lot of money off medicaid and emergency medicaid. Frist is another wealthy senator who has his stocks in a "blind" trust. Yeah right!!
Saw dust in their hair? This is an outrage!!!! Why would they bother enforcing OSHA rules? They are Illegal aliens. I guess we can just pick and chose which laws to follow?
I think the 33% approval rate and November have a lot more to do with it. The rep's are probably going to get hammered in Nov. As they deserve to be.
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