Community ClicksWorking for workers
I have a friendly acquaintance with employees at a nearby market, immigrants from Nepal and Mexico.
I suspect they make less than the minimum wage.
One checkout clerk says he works 10-hour days, six days a week, with no overtime pay.
I gather that they lack green cards and so are reluctant to complain.
I want to report this to the authorities but do not want to get anybody fired or in trouble with immigration.
What should I do?
— Stuart Gold,
Brooklyn
You should not encumber them with aid.
It is odious of their boss to cheat these employees out of their rightful pay — if that’s the case — but it is up to them to decide how to respond.
Do not pre-empt that decision.
Instead, discuss the matter with them.
And before you do, it would be generous of you to do some research so you can give them an idea of their options, including where they might get savvy legal advice.
Kristin Houser, a lawyer with a firm specializing in employment law, told me via e-mail that under the federal Fair Labor Standards act, “a worker’s immigration status is totally irrelevant to whether a violation occurred and to whether the worker is entitled to a remedy such as back pay.”
Here law comports with ethics: decent treatment on the job ought not depend on what paperwork was filed at the border.
But seeking redress can be perilous, Houser cautions: while there are legal protections for undocumented workers who pursue remedies for wage-and-hour violations, “none of them prevent an employer from calling ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), possibly triggering the deportation process.”
She notes that “monetary damages aren’t much comfort if the worker ends up in Mexico.”
Houser acknowledges that “it is actually against an employer’s self-interest to report their workers to ICE, since it is illegal knowingly to employ undocumented workers.”
But people sometimes act irrationally in pursuit of vengeance, as Iago could confirm were he not dead and fictional.
Engineering English
I prescreen job applicants for a small engineering consulting firm committed to equal opportunity.
These jobs are primarily technical, but English-language skills are required for the technical writing involved, and a writing sample is requested.
Many applications are full of errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation, and are summarily rejected.
This disproportionately affects applicants whose names suggest that English may be their second language, as well as other minority groups.
Is it ethical to reject engineering applicants for their writing skills?
— J.W.,
Pennsylvania
Because clear and accurate writing is a significant part of the job, it is legitimate to eliminate applicants who demonstrate an inability to provide it.
But don’t stop there.
Your admirable commitment to equal opportunity can be reconciled with your determination to maintain high professional standards.
There is no shortage of minority candidates with good writing skills; you should make sure those folks are aware of this job opening by broadening your search to take in, for example, historically black colleges and universities. You can reach out to organizations involved in training and finding jobs for those for whom English is a second language.
You can recruit women, sometimes underrepresented in engineering firms.
You can help lower-level employees within your own organization gain the skills they need to advance.
In addition, if you do reject an otherwise qualified person because his English-language skills are deficient, let him know why, so he has a chance to improve (and not waste his time buffing up his mastery of tango or knitting).
What’s crucial is that you are not passive — responding only to those who happen to apply for this job — but take steps to honor both of your laudable values.
Update: After posting on engineering-employment Web sites directed to women, African-Americans and Hispanics, the company found a hire through a more general site, Craigslist.
His surname did not announce him as Hispanic, but he turned out to be so and to be bilingual, an asset in this job.
