Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, February 21, and Friday, February 28
There continues to be no new enforcement actions or resolutions of enforcement actions at the EEOC, OSHA, MSHA, and DOL, but we do have a new sort of policy memo out from the EEOC that is interesting, as well as a news story:
Texas Thieves
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is alleging the Corpus Christi School District in Texas has been stealing wages from its members by not following Davis Bacon bidding rules. Channel 3 News in Corpus Christi reports:
Marshall Morrin has worked in the electrical field for more than 10 years, but said he’s never got the opportunity to work on a CCISD project because of the wages.
“It’s not right,” he said. “I mean it’s directly affecting our community. We’re all products of CCISD. We are basically being undercut because our wages can’t be paid or there not required to be paid at that rate, so our contractors, therefore, can not bid that work with our composite rate.”
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has 800 members in South Texas, with nearly 400 in Corpus Christi who claim they have faced unfair pay over the past 20 years working on CCISD projects such as Carroll High School and the new middle school off Yorktown.
That changed in 2023 when David Carranco became the first to take the CCISD to court, claiming it was not following Davis-Bacon prevailing wages. That’s the standard set for minimum wages in this profession.
“But this has been going on for the last two decades, which is, CCISD has been failing to abide by the law and adopting third party-wage packages, which the 13th Court of Appeals has just recently, as of December of last year, has determined that is unlawful,” he said.
…
David Carranco said CCISD has asked his union to draft a proposed settlement by the next school board meeting, which is on Monday, March 24th.
“Anti-American” Bias
U.S. EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas announced “The EEOC is putting employers and other covered entities on notice: if you are part of the pipeline contributing to our immigration crisis or abusing our legal immigration system via illegal preferences against American workers, you must stop. The law applies to you, and you are not above the law. The EEOC is here to protect all workers from unlawful national origin discrimination, including American workers.”
This could foretell an interesting shift in emphasis regarding immigration enforcement. Typically, immigration enforcement is simply used as a cudgel against undocumented immigrants themselves. But this press statement was pointed towards employers.
“Unlawful bias against American workers, in violation of Title VII, is a large-scale problem in multiple industries nationwide,” Lucas said. “Many employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, and visa holders or other legal immigrants over American workers—in direct violation of federal employment law prohibiting national origin discrimination. Cracking down on this type of unlawful discrimination will shift employer incentives, decreasing demand for illegal alien workers and decreasing abuse of the United States’ legal immigration system.”
Employers have many excuses for why they may prefer non-American workers, but none of these are legally permissible reasons to violate Title VII:
- lower cost labor (whether due to payment under the table to illegal aliens, or exploiting rules around certain visa-holder wage requirements, etc.);
- a workforce that is perceived as more easily exploited, in terms of the group’s lack of knowledge, access, or use of wage and hour protections, antidiscrimination protections, and other legal protections;
- customer or client preference;
- biased perceptions that foreign workers are more productive or have a better work ethic than American workers.
“The law is clear: the prohibition on national origin discrimination applies to any national origin group, including discrimination against American workers in favor of foreign workers,” said Lucas. “The EEOC is going to rigorously enforce the law to protect American workers from national origin discrimination.”
Union Busters
Brought to you by LaborLab: The nation’s leading watchdog standing with working families to stop employer coercion and intimidation. Visit www.laborlab.us for more info.
- Labcorp/Portland hired East Coast Labor Relations (dba Reliant Labor Consultants) for $3,500/day
- East Coast Labor Relations provides union avoidance services to employers. They advertise that their consultants are “former high ranking union officials” and that they are bilingual. The language on Reliant Labor Consulting’s website is identical. Their services include avoiding, preventing, and fighting a union. This is the firm that Joseph Brock is president of. You’ll remember from Boss Watch a couple weeks back that he was the President of Teamsters Local 830 in Philadelphia before he lost an election and took his ball to the other side of the fence and started fighting for the bad guys.
- His fancy pants consulting bullshit didn’t pay off this time though, because workers won their union 79-23
- Masonite hired LRI Consulting Services for $425/hour
- Bob Evans Farms hired LRI Consulting Services for $425/hour
The following LM-20s were amended:
- Heightened Solutions amended their LM-20 for Northwestern Medical Center to add their compensation rate of $300/hour
- Workers won their union election 150-45 (tally announced 2/6/25)
- Allee’s Transportation amended their LM-20 for Amazon DAX5 to add their compensation rate of $2,000/day
- The owner of Allee’s Transportation is Algeron Wright, who is a self described HR Professional in Swansea, SC who also is a “gospel and inspirational recording artist.” His band is called Algeron Wright and Triumphant Praise on Spotify. Don’t seem very Christian to get $2k per day to tell workers not to organize!
Due to a lack of enforcement, some labor relations consultants may disregard the law and fail to report their activities to the U.S. Department of Labor. Therefore, it’s crucial for organizers and workers to report suspected “persuader” activity to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).
It’s crucial for organizers and workers to report suspected “persuader” activity to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). You can reach them via email at OLMS-Public@dol.gov, by calling (202) 693-0123, or by contacting your nearest OLMS District Office.
For assistance, please contact LaborLab at contact@laborlab.us.