Congratulations to the UC Irvine School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic and the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center!

LONG BEACH, Calif. Eighteen hotel employees reached a $130,000 settlement with HEI Hotels and Resorts over denial of meal and rest breaks required by California law. The settlement arose from claims filed with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement by employees of the Hilton Long Beach and Executive Meeting Center, owned and managed by HEI.

In hearings before the Labor Commissioner, workers described facing direct pressure from supervisors to work through meals and to skip rest breaks to keep up with increasingly heavy workloads. Some employees suffered injuries due to the unremitting nature of their work. Employees in the hotel’s kitchen, restaurant, room service, banquet services and housekeeping departments stepped forward to participate in the legal action. Most of the workers are “back of the house” monolingual Spanish speakers.

FILED UNDER: Immigrant Workers | State Departments of Labor | Wage Theft

“No Justice, No Piece”: Pizza Company Accused of Targeting Immigrant Strikers, Threatening Reverification [InTheseTimes]

Home Care Workers Can’t Wait [Sacramento Bee] 

Central California Growers Struggle With Farmworker Shortage [Newobserver.com] 

CA Department of Industrial Relations Partners with Watsonville Law Center to Provide Medical Services to Low-Wage Workers with Job Injuries [MarketWatch] 

Employers in South Say That AZ-Style Immigration Laws Threaten Their Industries [Journal.us] 

FILED UNDER: Caregivers | I-9/Employer Audits | Immigrant Workers | State Departments of Labor

U.S. News and World Report Covers Constitutionality of Arizona's SB 1070 [USNWR]

Domestic Workers Set To Rally For Stronger Enforcement of NY Domestic Workers Bill of Rights [NY Daily News]

How Mississippi's Black/Brown Alliance Beat the South's Anti-Immigrant Strategy [Indypendent]

Georgia Again Tries to Replace Immigrant Workers with Inmates [ThinkProgress]

Chamber of Commerce Sues Department of Labor over Guestworker Rule Change [International Business Times] 

Agricultural Labor Relations Board Fights to Reinstate Watsonville Farmworker [Monterey Herald]

FILED UNDER: Agricultural Workers | Caregivers | Immigrant Workers | Immigration | Litigation | Low-Wage Workers | State Departments of Labor

ICE to release nationwide standard for “illegal” immigrant risk assessment. John Morton testifies that only 1,500 immigrants, or 1% of those reviewed, have been granted prosecutorial discretion. [Fierce Homeland Security] 

New Bedford Ceremony Recalls Immigration Raid. [Boston Globe]

Blue-collar Americans and Blue-collar Immigrants Caught in Same Trap. [South Coast Today]

Striking Down a Bad Law, Piece By Piece. [New York Times]

NY Attorney General Schneiderman Will Not Ask for Immigration Status in Unfair Labor Practice Cases. [Village Voice]. AG Scneiderman's position builds on an advisory opinion released earlier in 2003, concluding that Hoffman Plastics does not preclude the NY State DOL from enforcing state wage payment laws on behalf of undocumented immigrants.

FILED UNDER: DHS/ICE | DOL | State Departments of Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) and the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (CA DLSE) announced yesterday the release of a new memorandum of understanding regarding the improper classification of employees as independent contractors.

Misclassification of employees often leave workers vulnerable, as these employees often are denied access to critical benefits and protections — such as family and medical leave, overtime compensation, minimum wage pay and unemployment insurance — to which they are entitled. In addition, misclassification can create economic pressure for law-abiding business owners, who often struggle to compete with those who are skirting the law. Employee misclassification also generates substantial losses for state unemployment insurance and workers' compensation funds.

FILED UNDER: DOL | Labor | State Departments of Labor