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Hiring

Hire an illegal immigrant, you can pay for his injuries, too

11/01/2007

Jose Gomez was working on the demolition crew at a building in Flushing, jackhammering a concrete slab, when the work site collapsed. The resulting fall left Gomez a paraplegic. He filed suit for lost wages. That’s when his employers officially noted Gomez was in the country illegally and was not entitled to such benefits …

ACLU forces abusive Manhattan retailer to pay up

11/01/2007

It took nearly a year, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has finally forced Manhattan retailer Albert Palacci to pay for blatantly exploiting three immigrant women …

Illegal immigrants arrested in Fairfield poultry plant raid

11/01/2007

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers raided a Koch Foods poultry plant in Fairfield and Koch’s headquarters in Chicago and arrested roughly 160 employees. Monte Lobb, an official at the Fairfield plant, said the company fired many employees after finding out they were illegal …

Illinois bucks feds on electronic employee verification

11/01/2007

The Illinois legislature sent a shot across the bow of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in August. It passed a law that forbids state employers from using the feds’ electronic E-Verify system to confirm employees’ eligibility to work unless the government can prove the system provides accurate and timely employee information 99% of the time …

Correcting I-9 mistakes four years after the fact

11/01/2007

Q. We recently discovered a stack of I-9s dating back to 2002. The forms were signed by the employees and include copies of the employees’ driver’s licenses and Social Security cards. Unfortunately, a company official never signed the I-9s. Can we sign the forms and backdate them to 2002? If not, what should we do? …

Require special credentials for foreign hires? Tell applicants

11/01/2007

Applicants from other countries or who were educated abroad pose special problems for HR professionals. For example, can you be sure their education and training are as good as that of U.S.-educated applicants? One way to find out is to require a credentialing company to certify the applicant’s educational equivalence. But if you go that route, make sure you inform applicants about the requirement …

Boone tree farmer tells Congress about H-2A visa problems

11/01/2007

Boone Christmas tree farmer Harry Yates testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture in an October hearing to review the labor needs of farmers. Yates offered his insights into the federal H-2A worker visa program …

Asking applicants about prior lawsuits is asking for trouble

11/01/2007

It may be natural to want to know whether an applicant has sued former employers. After all, if past performance predicts future behavior, you probably don’t want to end up with a serial litigator on your payroll. But asking about prior lawsuits may be hazardous: You can’t refuse to hire someone just because they sued for discrimination in the past …

As ye ask, so shall ye receive

11/01/2007

It’s OK to pay employees more if they negotiate harder during an interview, an Ohio court recently affirmed in a lawsuit against the Grande Pointe residential care facility in Richmond Heights …

Family-Responsibility discrimination: A growing trend

11/01/2007

The EEOC has issued new enforcement guidance concerning disparate treatment of workers with caregiving responsibilities—or “family-responsibility discrimination.” The guidelines are designed to help determine whether a particular employment decision is discriminatory. Family-responsibility discrimination is not a new type of discrimination, but rather an application of the existing discrimination laws to a situation that is drawing increasing attention …