Wage Theft in Georgia

In part 2 of their investigation which we told you about last week, Randy Travis, a reporter with Fox 5 in Atlanta, follows the money on the use of undocumented workers.  In this case, 50 bricklayers from Mexico were employed to work on two school sites and the Gainesville, GA police department headquarters, but were not paid for the work by the subcontractor Surig & Sons who hired them to do the work.

According to the video, even though the masons provided false papers, they were allowed to work on the projects and then were not fully paid by the company for the work that they performed.  Surig and Son owe workers $107,704 for the three projects.  That is wage theft and it is illegal in over 30 states.



A spokesperson for the City of Gainesville claimed not to be aware that the subcontractor had hired illegal workers and stated:

“We want to do what’s right and we don’t want to hire illegals.  At the same time, if someone does a job they deserve to be paid.”

This and other cases such as the one we reported on in Austin where a legal case has been filed on the legal basis of “dual employer” are further examples of the broken US immigration policy and the need for some major revisions to those laws and their enforcement.  It also points out the difficulty of monitoring those sites for labor and safety violations and the misuse of taxpayer funds.