Marietta Daily Journal

Pete Borden: Will new parking deck mean more jobs for illegals?

by Pete Borden
May 12, 2010

My first thought, upon reading that the Cobb Board of Commissioners is moving ahead with plans to build a parking deck downtown, was “I wonder how many illegal aliens will be doing jobs paid for with taxpayer dollars, jobs that rightfully should go to Cobb County’s unemployed workers?”

I hope nobody in Cobb really thinks the recent revelation that illegal immigrants are working on the courthouse project put a stop to that practice. Nobody in the construction industry believes it. We know that they just switched names and continued as before.

The bricklayer trade may be law abiding now, but there are numerous other trades that nobody is checking on.

Speaking of that flap, what has happened to the coverage? It was front page news, both in the MDJ and the Atlanta newspaper, for a short time and now it is gone.

Could it be that it went the way of the federal investigation that then-Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens said he would ask for? Did he, in fact, ask for it? If so, why was it not done?

The plain fact is that any action, in that respect, is going to be stalled until the courthouse is finished and turned over to the county and it is too late to save any jobs. Then interest in punishing the guilty will wane. The people will look at the new courthouse and say, “Wow, is that beautiful. So what if some of the people who worked there were illegal? They did a nice job, didn’t they?”

Meanwhile, your neighbor, Joe Bricklayer, loses his house and his truck because he can’t work for “$10 an hour, under the table.” That’s the going rate for illegal bricklayers on the courthouse project. Where is the IRS?

Now comes the parking deck, and as sure as the sun rises, the same thing will happen there, just like it happened, and probably continues, at the courthouse project.

The ruse is deceptively simple, but complex looking enough to frustrate anyone attempting to conduct an investigation. This is the way it works: General Contractor receives a contract from Owner to perform the work. He puts the job out for sub trade bids and decides that Mason Subcontractor is the low bidder .Masonry Subcontractor immediately hires Labor Sub, who only furnishes labor and some of the equipment.

Labor Sub then hires Lower Paid Labor Sub, who then hires Cheaper Labor Sub. Cheaper Labor Sub hires Cheaper Yet Labor Sub, who, in turn hires Dirt Cheap Labor Sub whose illegal immigrant workers actually perform the work, for $8 to $10 an hour, cash.

When an investigation is launched, Masonry Subcontractor says, “Labor Sub is the one who should E-Verify them.” Labor Sub says,” Check with Lower Paid Labor Sub. He should be the one to E-Verify.” So it goes down to Dirt Cheap Labor Sub, who shrugs his shoulders, says “No comprende,” walks away and calls one of the illegal alien lobby groups and complains that the racist government is picking on him.

The next day, the same people show up, with a new foreman and a new company name and the work goes on.

This is what happens, with variations in the number of lower-tier subs, countless times all over Cobb County and the state of Georgia. The people in charge are giving lip service to enforcement of the law, in favor of cheap labor, at the expense of Cobb’s workforce.

You may be sure it is happening to some extent on the road and bridge jobs being done with that SPLOST money, the school construction being performed with SPLOST III funds and will happen with the parking deck. It is, of course, even more widespread on jobs not involving public money.

The major problem is that the Owner (State, County, City or private money) does not really care as long as the job gets done cheaply.

The fact that the masonry subcontractor on the courthouse was more than substantially lower than the competition, should have thrown up a red flag. In truth, it did, but nobody saw it, or they didn’t care and just ignored it.

Until some teeth are put into the law and lawbreakers are punished to the full extent of that law, and until officials who let it happen get punished, the workers of Cobb County, along with their families, will continue to suffer.

We, in Cobb County, cannot police the entire state, but we can sure do something about our own county, by demanding strict enforcement and seeing that we get it. We owe it to each other and to ourselves.

Pete Borden is a mason in east Cobb.

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