It's a typical Cinderella story. Brazilians get an under-the-table job at a pizza place. The American boss totally abuses their hourly rights as they are immigrants. Federal investigators start investigating said pizza place and orders them to pay back overtime payments.
I think this is one of the beautiful parts of our government, doesn't matter if you were illegally working or not, the law is the law. You work more than 40 hours a week, you get your time and a half. And that is how it should be!
Now this little pizzaria, which has probably shut down at this point and declared bankruptcy, will have to pay $341 million in back pay to all it's staff. That's a lot of slices and medium size sodas.
More amazingly, an old policy from the 90s has been renewed. No complaint given to the Department of Labor can be passed to the Department of Immigration. It seems that they are now doing their job, making sure everyone working in the US is being treating well.
As for those who think "they were illegal blah blah blah bitch bitch bitch", get over it. There are tons of thousands of cazillions of illegals in the US. They work. They are living their life. Hell, They are doing the jobs that we won't do. So if it bothers you so much, let them become legal. Do what just about every country does and have a mass legalization of immigrants. Legalize them and make them pay taxes.
And if that is not something that you would consider, try the Dutch method. They offer 2,000 euros to immigrants who leave of their own free will.
Dear Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYou are SO RIGHT, I am 100% with you on this one.
Many people are very unfair towards immigrants, they want to do the low paying dirty work but complain and bitch about them.
First of all, it is a BIG FAT LIE that immigrants get health care and welfare, at least in states like Florida, California etc...
Many of them even pay Income taxes with the hopes of becoming legal one day, but even the ones who don't pay income taxes, are paying all the other taxes out there, like sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes and all the other taxes you can't avoid.
Good for them, if these Pizza place owns this much in back pay, imagine how much money they have made on the back of those immigrants, definitely no pocket change.
This is also one of the reasons I LOVE the US so much, what is fair is fair and the underdog is always protected, and this is the way it should always be, if you keep greedy Republicans away, anyway...
This is the land of opportunity, hard work and above all, a country built on the back of hard working immigrants and their descendants, and it will always be...
:)
Ray
You are absolutely right! If you hire them pay them. If you don't like 'illegal' immigrants don't hire them. So glad the justice sytem meted out justice in this case.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the article Rachel, as always, you have a great way of thinking, and I loved the photo of the statue of liberdde holding a bottle of "cachaça 51", kkk =P
ReplyDelete