This became very, very long. It’s mostly meant for myself anyway. TLDR; Non English speaking immigrants are exploited in a criminal manner every day and it makes me angry.
Hello everybody, I just wanted to take some time to rant into the void about my experience with the blatant and disgusting exploitation of illegal immigrant workers in the US, because I’ve reached a breaking point this week and I can’t do anything else about it.
I work a manual labor job in Texas, and so I work with a lot of immigrants, many of them illegal, many of them don’t speak English. My Spanish isn’t perfect but I’ve gotten so much better in the past 2 years working here, and I’ve met some amazing people who I would’ve never even had the chance to meet had I not worked on my Spanish. And some of the things they’ve told me about the struggles of being an illegal immigrants, and especially if you don’t speak English… It’s really hard for these guys. For real. And especially so when it comes to being exploited for their labor.
Some of the things I’ve learned is how much underpaid they are compared to others. And I know that everyone knows this goes on, but it’s almost criminal. There are some grown ass men in their 40s and 50s who are making $13-$15 an hour and they have been for YEARS. One of my coworkers Polo has been sitting at $12 for NINE YEARS. WHAT!! We do hard work, it’s not the worst, but we’re sweating 10 hours a day, six days a week, And these guys are working for what amounts to pennies these days.
I asked my absolute best friend and coworker Pancho, why? Why do they continue to work this hard for so long for so little pay. And the answer was pretty simple, what is he supposed to do? There is no management who speaks Spanish, there is no one they can approach and comfortably speak with about the terms of their labor. And they’re terrified to make a fuss about it because they think they’ll get fired for it. It may be hard to understand, but speaking a language you’re not comfortable with is fucking scary. And it’s like 100x worse when it’s your boss, and your boss is a greedy, racist dick.
So, I saw my opportunity. I offered to be Pancho’s unofficial interpreter to assist him in asking for a much deserved raise. And just like that, it worked. After years of being paid $14 an hour he got a $5 raise! He was so happy, and holy shit does that man deserve it. He lives off nothing and sends every extra dime to his wife and 3 sons. And all this time it was because of a simple fucking language barrier, because again, my Spanish isn’t super great.
And that’s nice and all, but during this conversation I learned something that angers me to my CORE. Apparently, they don’t pay the illegal immigrants overtime.
WHAT!
We work SIXTY hours a week, six days a week. And we do hard work, it’s not the worst, but we’re sweatin’ for sure. And they’re not paid OVERTIME??? At some of the rates they’re being paid??? Absolutely outrageous, I bitched to everybody I knew about it, outside the company of course, and literally everyone just kind of shrugged and said something along the lines of “They don’t have a SSN, they don’t pay taxes, they don’t get to be paid overtime.” Even people who agreed with my feelings on this. And honestly I believed and first too. My boss even said it was illegal FOR HIM to pay them overtime.
But then I did some research, and I learned that it’s not true. Technically it’s illegal to hire an illegal immigrant, but if you do, you are required by law to pay them time and a half for anything above 40 hours. Regardless of legal status, just like everyone else. No doubt about it. And if they’re not paid overtime, they’re entitled to compensation for all the missed overtime. Some of these guys have 10-20 hours of underbilled time a week, some of them for over TWENTY YEARS. Holy shit. It’s probably hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to these guys. And after talking to some other people, apparently they’re breaking the law double time for not paying taxes on those unbilled hours.
This has made me so angry at the way immigrants are treated and how little help is given to them. How hard is it to actually become a citizen no matter how good of a person you are. Years, sometimes decades, and tens of thousands of dollars. There are so many ways these guys are at a severe disadvantage on a daily basis, and these motherfuckers want to pay them dirt and illegally not pay overtime, knowingly.
And unfortunately, I can’t really do a damn thing about it. This would 110% get the business shut down. And my boss is closely related to my sister. She is financially dependent on him in many ways, and my brother in law works here and is set to run the company himself in about 5 years. I would be putting a lot of people I care about, who have no involvement in this, in potentially very very bad situations. Not to mention that it would probably be impossible for me to tip the guys off without it being known it was me that ruined the company.
It just makes me sick. I feel almost like I’m doing the same thing by being quiet about it. I want to tell them so bad, but it would be essentially pressing the red button. We all hate the people who run the company and some of them wouldn’t hesitate to bring it down. So I just have to stay quiet about the crime going on in front of my eyes every day.
But I am absolutely talking with the other guys and offering to assist in interpreting for their raise if they want.
If anyone else is interested in this, look up what rights illegals have under the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). This is the federal document that outlines things like minimum wage, overtime, etc. Illegal immigrants have pretty much the same rights we do.
I found this website informative: https://texaslawhelp.org/article/immigration-and-employment-law-answers-to-common-questions.
If anyone’s still here, wow. Congrats.