New Haven Independent

Posted by: Two Good Hands | December 29, 2008 12:53 PM

The problem isn't "mexicans" versus "responsible carpenters." It's employers who violate labor laws. Period. There are employers who are using latino workers because their labor is easy to exploit...and there are other employers who are using African-American workers or young, inexperienced workers or Eastern European workers for the same reasons.

The focus should be squarely on employers' compliance with workers compensation, minimum wage, overtime wage, and prevailing wage laws. Not the nationality or ethnicity of the workers.

Posted by: Anon | December 29, 2008 3:11 PM

I have been victim of harassment, libel and aggression by the carpenters union.

They are one of the most untalented and irresponsible unions in the State of CT.

MS Conoble was part of the scout party before the heavies came on site in the incident I was involved in. She should not be trusted and no one should give an inch.

Posted by: Sarah28 | December 29, 2008 3:24 PM

Carpenter Jahan Patterson,

It is legal in this City, this State and this great country to employ "Mexicans" and / or look alike. It is however against the law to employ "Undocumented Workers".

It is also legal not to use union workers.

Nobody seems to have explained that to you, Sir, so I just did! To further this since we have started this much-needed education for you, note that:

1. "Undocumented Workers" come in all shape, form and national origin.

2. Your smile and looks on the picture (here above) does not attest to you ability and willingness to show up dependably on the job site, sober, safe and functional every day and particularly the Monday after payday.

3. I can give you a list of Project Managers' Monday morning nightmares cause by no-show sub-contractors who did not look like Mexicans at all!

4. There is a whole segment of the population that cannot pass a simple pre-employment screening drug-test; and ... you guessed it ... they do no look like Mexicans at all!

5. I cannot guess where they come from at all, (really, I cannot)! Can you Sir?

It is time for this community to start explaining the basics to those who feel that they have the birthright to exclusive access to opportunities, then (on top of that) they have to be paid more that imported stonecutters from Italy!

Get a grip!

Thou and thy employer shall compete fairly, lawfully and competitively for all opportunities. So is the new order of things!

Posted by: bill | December 29, 2008 4:28 PM

Sarah28

It's nice to say it's illegal to hire undocumented workers but New Haven is a sanctuary city where undocumented workers are given safe haven by the Mayor. Jobs are being lost to illegal immigrants, in spite of your elegant words. It's heartening to see some of the minorities losing out the most, finally coming to that realization.

Posted by: Streever | December 29, 2008 4:40 PM

I don't want to touch the specific comments with a 20 foot pole, but I am curious about the Konover allegations by the union: what exactly are they?

In which ways is Konover not being just?

Can a Union Rep explain this statement for us? (or anyone who attended the meeting)

Thank you

Posted by: Hood Rebel | December 29, 2008 5:06 PM

I totally agree with "two good hands."

Given our history in this country, African Americans should be careful not to get caught up in the racist attitudes towards latinos or any other ethnic group.

Black people: stay away from all that racist bullshit and deal with the facts of the company's imperative to following labor laws.

Posted by: HereItComes | December 29, 2008 8:13 PM

Well it wont take long for the us to be fighting one another, taking our eyes and minds off of the complete collapse of government regulation that has brought our country to its knees. Our economic crisis can be attributed not to the worker, but to the greed of business owners and corporation who seek to maximium their profits at the expense of people, communities, and nations.

Rather than holding accountable the corrupt, asleep at the switch politicians (like Dodd), looks like the workers, union and nonunion, are going to battling it out on this one.

The corporate leaders of banking and business are in colusion against every family in this country. Until we open our eyes and elect politicians who reflect our values, we will just continue with the same old stuff.

As far as Sarah's attack on union labor as being undependable, I can say that it does the union no good to have a lump in its midst. Labor and management have clear and mutual understandings about work rules, which need to be followed. If laborers fail to perform, there is a procedure to dismiss them. Do you think a union wants people working for them who give their brothers and sisters a bad name?

Finally, the battle has been cast, "Mexicans" versus "Blacks". Who do you think will win this one? I can tell you for sure, not the Mexicans nor the Blacks, but the contractors.

Posted by: fedupwithliberals | December 29, 2008 9:56 PM

This is just the beginning. When unemployment goes up to 10%, you'll see how welcoming our sanctuary cities are!

Posted by: Two Good Hands | December 30, 2008 9:48 AM

Thank you, Hood Rebel and Hereitcomes...Seems that cooler heads are still in the minority but at least we're starting to wake up.

Posted by: nfjanette | December 30, 2008 10:03 AM

The corporate leaders of banking and business are in colusion against every family in this country

Well intentioned social liberals that have effectively endorsed the human slave laborers they call "undocumented workers". These workers, many of whom are from Mexico, are in my experience hard working, decent people - but they are pawns being used for their cheap labor and have a disruptive effect on local resident workers and their wages.

A porous border with Mexico has been a disaster, and even the "get tough" Bush administration failed to fix it.

Posted by: Streever | December 30, 2008 1:42 PM

how do you fix 14 million people NFJanette?

I don't think it's social liberals fault. I think they are trying to fix a problem in a REAL way, instead of by using secret prisons (such as in Rhode Island) & deporting 14 million people.

You do the math on that one!

At least if we DOCUMENT the undocumented they can't be exploited for cheap labor any more.

Don't any republicans see the genius in documenting the undocumented? at the very least it lets us penalize the corporations that exploit them.

Or,
we could use that info to deport all 14 million. (Sorry, this is intended to be sarcastic.)

Posted by: Two Good Hands | December 30, 2008 2:10 PM

Funny thing about the advocates of "get tough" immigration policies. The leadership talks a nice talk out in public about how they are against "slave labor" and about how they're just looking out for workers - and even about what good friends to African-American workers they are.

Curiously, though, you never see these individuals out there fighting against the exploitation of day laborers by unscrupulous employers - they leave that work to the immigrant rights advocates that they condemn. Funny, too, that you also don't see these individuals turning out at meetings where people are talking about racism and discrimination or other problems faced by African-American workers. No, they only seem interested in "the minorities" when they can be pitted against each other.

But perhaps the strangest thing of all is that when you go to the message boards of the anti-immigration organizations and read what they say among themselves, all of a sudden they are no longer talking piously about their love for the exploited immigrant . . . instead, their followers rant in the most vile racist terms about how Mexicans and other immigrants aren't even human beings, are destroying the "American" way of life, live off welfare, are dirty and disease-carrying, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Do these anti-immigrant groups really think that they are fooling people?

Posted by: commonsense | December 30, 2008 2:31 PM

why does anyone but especially other people of color feel it is okay to dump on poor mexicans? all they want to do is work and send some money home so their families don't starve. are these carpenters suggesting that no latinos from west of the missisippi be hired to work? even if their families have lived in this country for generations and are citizens or are some mexicans okay and others not okay. you are on a slippery slope. read sarah's comments well and learn a little before you start attacking people who wish you no harm.

Posted by: nfjanette | December 30, 2008 4:12 PM

"TWO GOOD HANDS": do you really see the world through such black and white polemical vision? Do you really believe anyone holding a position different than yours on immigration policy is a vile racist? That's absurd. There are many different positions on immigration policy and many different people and groups involved.

Posted by: nfjanette | December 30, 2008 4:20 PM

how do you fix 14 million people NFJanette?

I don't think it's social liberals fault. I think they are trying to fix a problem in a REAL way, instead of by using secret prisons (such as in Rhode Island) & deporting 14 million people.

You do the math on that one!

Deportation is not a viable option. "Fixing" the existing crisis of 10+ million illegal immigrants will require passing legislation that provides both a penalized path to citizenship for existing illegal immigrants as well as rationalizing the process for the many good people who have been waiting on the legal process to become citizens. It will also have to include continued enforcement against businesses using illegal labor. In this way, we would remove the available option of illegally low waged workers, which would benefit all workers.

"Preventing" the crisis from getting worse will involve closing the porous southern border, not just for immigration issues, but for drug running and potential terrorist issues as well.

Posted by: Streever | December 30, 2008 4:22 PM

NFJanette,

I think you are seeing it VERY B&W.

Two Hands never said ANYONE holding a position different is a vile racist: just that many are. Maybe s/he is referring directly to people like the Community Watchdogs, who certainly do hold vile racist views--just ask the nice old men who got in my face as I tried to leave City Hall over the summer in front of a camera, while Dustin Gold fretfully watched on, hoping the cameras weren't picking it up. (He lucked out: they weren't on yet.)

I don't know what right they think they have to disrupt a private citizen, and I don't know where they are when people are working to reform the system.

All I hear from "get tough" advocates is nonsense.

Funny though, that you choose to go after 2 hands!

I asked you a real question!

what will you do about 14 million people?

I'd like to see where the money/resources come from to deport them!

Posted by: Margaret Conable | December 31, 2008 2:59 PM

Sarah28: It doesn't need to be said, but your all too typical assumptions about Jahan Patterson's work ethic are completely wrong. As others have pointed out, those remarks have that special flavor of racism against African Americans (stereotype: drunk and lazy) that matches up so exploitatively with the special flavor of racism directed against Latinos (stereotype: hard working and cheap) so as to pit the two groups against each other. Since these two flavors are so much in the air these days, I hope the Latino carpenters of New Haven (union and otherwise, Mexican and otherwise) can forgive a second year apprentice for catching the infection. Because I take it that you, Sarah28, are not a Latino carpenter, I won't ask Jahan to forgive you. Thanks to Two Hands and Hood Rebel for their thoughtful statements.
Anon: For a similar reason, it's not too surprising that on an occasion when some of our African American members are proud and visible, we find ourselves described (are you from Konover or a Konover sub, perhaps?) as "untalented" and "aggressive" (stereotype: stupid and violent). However, since you didn't see fit to press charges on the "harassment, libel, and aggression," perhaps the words you were looking for are "persistence, eloquence, and assertiveness." We caught you, didn't we? We have a pretty good track record on our investigations.
Streever: Konover's own statements are transparent to those familiar with the industry. It's hard to know what the company has a "long record of compliance" with, given that they conveniently don't hire trade workers directly. Their status as construction managers, in today's system of construction where all workers work for the subcontractors, allows them to claim they "don't have much control" when labor law violations or unsafe conditions occur, as if they weren't there every day overseeing the site. They repeatedly hire and rehire lawbreaking subcontractors (such as Champagne Drywall, probably the best known among the eight the state caught on their sites this year) and they don't hesitate to profit (conveniently indirectly) from the moneys stolen from workers and taxpayers when the fraud goes undetected.
In the meeting I gave two other examples. Earlier in the decade we were out there telling the ugly truths we heard from workers about Konover subcontractor Ben & Sons Drywall. Those charges were called baseless too. Now the owner Michel Pare is going to jail for misappropriating workers' retirement contributions on some of the state-funded prevailing wage jobs that Mr. Brown speaks to. See the Courant story earlier this month. When Ben & Sons went under, Pare cited working for Konover as a factor in the company's financial collapse. My second example was Commercial Concrete, formerly DMC Concrete, which ran without any workers' compensation coverage for more than a year until someone got hurt and they got caught. After they came out of their one-year debarment (for misclassifying employees as independent contractors, a felony in Connecticut) and later changed their name, Konover continued to hire them, including on state work, and their lawbreaking practices continued. I could cite many more examples.

Posted by: robn | January 4, 2009 9:43 AM

The book Fast Food Nation gives a very readable description of how illegal immigrants are expolited in the meatpaking industry. It may not help us solve the problem, but if you read it, it will give you a better sense of what the problem is. Most of the time, the hardest part of solving a problem is identifying what the problem is.

Posted by: Fedupwithliberals | January 4, 2009 10:57 AM

STREEVER

"what will you do about 14 million people?"

To paraphrase Confucius, "the deportation of 14 million starts with one person".