Undocumented Immigrant May Get Deported After Calling Out Wage Theft

[Judi Lynn]

Undocumented Immigrant May Get Deported After Calling Out Wage Theft
By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee on Jul 10, 2013 at 12:30 pm

Antonio Vanegas may be deported because he filed a complaint against his employer over unpaid hours at a food court restaurant, according to the Huffington Post on Tuesday. The Guatemala native was detained for four days after exposing labor violations at the pita shop where he worked. He now faces a deportation hearing in August.

Vanegas, a federal contract worker at Quick Pita inside DC’s Ronald Reagan Building, said that he worked upwards of sixty hours a week, but did not receive overtime pay. He claimed that he was paid $6.50 an hour under the table even though federal law dictates that contract workers like Vanegas should make the local prevailing wage — $8.25 an hour in DC.

Vanegas’s legal status was never an issue during his three years of working at Quick Pita, even though numerous police officers and immigration agents made up his customer base. Only when he was vocal about being underpaid and overworked did the Federal Protective Service, a security branch of the Department of Homeland Security, show up to take away Vanegas’s work badge. At the same time, he was turned over to immigration officials. He also lost his job.

Vanegas is hardly the only exploited federal contract worker. The Department of Labor is investigating allegations of wage theft and inhumane working conditions of other food venues in the Ronald Reagan Building. Meanwhile, the federal government employs more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonalds combined. Contract workers in the Reagan building organized a strike in May. Ten workers were initially fired for striking. They were later given their jobs back.

More:
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/07/10/2276121/dc-undocumented-immigrant-wage-theft/

[Peace Patriot]

1. "the federal government employs more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonalds combined"

Any government that would name an airport, public building or anything else after Ronald Reagan (supported/funded genocide in Guatemala, conducted an illegal war on Nicaragua, de-regulated the S&L's (small savers' accounts promptly and massively looted), re-wrote the tax code to favor the uber-rich, busted the air controllers' union and committed treason on the Iran U.S. hostage situation) would be expected to then loot poor workers en masse, employ undocumented workers who have no rights and no protection and fire, arrest and deport them if they complain.

Look to the building's NAME! Reagan began our steep decline into a corpo-fascist state. The rich, including our political establishment, and including most of our own party leadership, still worship that bastard. Until that changes, we can expect our government to behave just like Wal-Mart. It IS Wal-mart. Wal-mart with nukes, drones and billions and billions of dollars in secret budgets and secret agencies.

I am nevertheless shocked by this statement: "the federal government employs more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonalds combined." I thought I was unshockable, at this point. I guess I still have a lot to learn, as we all do. It's hard to keep up with the more egregious crimes of our government, let alone the long term chronic crimes. The statement is well-sourced. Here is the link:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15039/top_democrats_low_wage_federal_contractors/

This is happening precisely due to privatization of our public services; it's hidden by the use of private contractors; it is in fact illegal (see the source). SOME Democratic leaders object to it. Hearings were held. This brave worker, Antonio Vanegas, testified at them. But, in my opinion and experience, it all goes back to Reagan and his henchmen who regarded our government as their private looting expedition and war machine--a phenomenon that culminated in the Bush Junta, should have been stopped or at least checked to a considerable degree by our Democratic leaders and was not.

[Socialistlemur]

2. I believe Reagan signed an amnesty bill?

I don't think Reagan was good but the point made about the airport is out of synch.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Spend some time researching what the right-wing idiot actually DID during his Presidency,

or even during his pathetic time as governor and even before that.

Learn something about this train-wreck posing as a human being FIRST then feel free to disrupt in his name after that. There is very little, if anything, you can say to defend him, unlike the swinish, ignorant by choice, right-wingers who tried to deify his image.