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ADEQUACY OF LABOR LAW ENFORCEMENT IN

NEW ORLEANS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 26, 2007

Serial No. 110–191

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DIANE E. WATSON, California

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JARON R. BOURKE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 26, 2007 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

DeCamp, Paul, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, Employment

Standards Administration, Department of Labor, accompanied by William L. Carlson, Ph.D., Administrator, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department

of Labor; and Alexander J. Passantino, Deputy Administrator, Wage

and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor ......................................................................................... 139

Steele, Jeffrey, former employee of the Army Corps of Engineers; Ted

Smukler, director of public policy, Immigrant Worker Justice; Jennifer

Rosenbaum, staff attorney, Immigrant Justice Project, Southern Poverty Law Center; and Saket Soni and Jacob Horowitz, New Orleans

Workers Center for Racial Justice ............................................................... 17

Rosenbaum, Jennifer ................................................................................. 35

Soni, Saket and Jacob Horowitz .............................................................. 50

Smukler, Ted ............................................................................................. 28

Steele, Jeffrey ............................................................................................ 17

Washington, Tracie, president and CEO, Louisiana Justice Institute; and

Catherine Ruckelshaus, litigation director, National Employment Law

Project ............................................................................................................ 208

Ruckelshaus, Catherine ............................................................................ 216

Washington, Tracie ................................................................................... 208

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 243

Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 13

DeCamp, Paul, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, Employment

Standards Administration, Department of Labor, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 142

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 97

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio:

Article dated February 15, 2007 .............................................................. 175

E-mail dated February 22, 2007 .............................................................. 164

E-mail dated June 18, 2007 ...................................................................... 154

Letter dated June 19, 2007 ...................................................................... 168

List of H1-B employers who have been debarred ................................... 202

Memo dated June 21, 2007 ....................................................................... 191

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Rosenbaum, Jennifer, staff attorney, Immigrant Justice Project, Southern

Poverty Law Center:

Letter dated May 1, 2006 ......................................................................... 63

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 38

Ruckelshaus, Catherine, litigation director, National Employment Law

Project, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 218

Smukler, Ted, director of public policy, Immigrant Worker Justice, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 30

Soni, Saket, New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 53

Steele, Jeffrey, former employee of the Army Corps of Engineers, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 20

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Washington, Tracie, president and CEO, Louisiana Justice Institute, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 211

(1)

ADEQUACY OF LABOR LAW ENFORCEMENT IN

NEW ORLEANS

TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m. in room

2147, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Kucinich, Watson, Davis of Illinois,

Tierney, Issa, Mica, Cannon, and Bilbray.

Staff present: Jaron R. Bourke, staff director; Noura Erakat,

counsel; Jean Gosa, clerk; Evan Schlom, intern; Natalie Laber,

press secretary, Office of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich;

Kristina Husar, minority professional staff member; John Cuaderes

and Larry Brady, minority senior investigators and policy advisors;

and Benjamin Chance, minority clerk.

Mr. KUCINICH. The hearing will come to order.

Thank you very much for your attendance here today. This is a

meeting of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and

Government Reform Committee.

Today’s hearing deals with the adequacy of labor law enforcement in New Orleans. We have an extensive witness list, and in

the interest of moving this hearing forward I am going to make my

opening statement. The ranking member, my friend from California, Mr. Issa, will be joining us shortly. He just returned from a

trip to Lebanon. With his permission communicated through his

staff, we are going to start. He will be joining us.

We are also joined by my friend and colleague from Illinois, the

Honorable Danny Davis.

I want to welcome all of the guests and people that are testifying

here today. This is the third hearing in a series of hearings on the

state of urban America. The series intends to take a closer look at

American cities, their progress, their problems, and their future.

Today’s hearing will take a closer look at the adequacy of labor law

enforcement in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes

Katrina and Rita. Our previous hearings looked at taxpayer financed debt for the reconstruction of sports stadiums, as well as

the sub-prime mortgage industry, the problem with foreclosure, the

payday lending industry, and the enforcement of the Community

Reinvestment Act.

Today we will examine the adequacy of labor law enforcement in

New Orleans post-Katrina. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina

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broke levies and flooded New Orleans with more than 100 billion

gallons of water. The flooding killed at least 1,400 people, half of

whom were from New Orleans, and left hundreds of thousands of

others homeless.

The no-bid, cost-plus contracts that characterized the reconstruction have received some scrutiny. Companies such as AshBritt,

Inc.; Bechtel Group, Inc.; Ceres Environmental; Fluor Corp.; and

Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, amongst many

others, received billions of dollars for rebuilding New Orleans in

much the same process as was followed in Iraq, and many of the

same players, as well. But what has not yet received sufficient

scrutiny and is the focus of today’s hearing is this: in addition to

getting cost-plus and no-bid contracts, the corporations received

Federal contracts and subcontracts that also benefited from the

suspension of many labor laws and the non-enforcement of others.

In the aftermath of the hurricanes, President Bush issued a

number of Executive orders to suspend labor laws and documentation requirements. These included the suspension of the DavisBacon Act, the suspension of Affirmative Action requirements, the

suspension of regular enforcement or Occupational, Safety, and

Health Administration standards, and the suspension of documentation requirements by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Labor is the Federal cop in the workplace

safety, wages, and hours beat. Where was Sheriff Labor during the

early months of the reconstruction?

Here is just one troubling statistic: the number of Department of

Labor investigations in New Orleans decreased from 70 in the year

before Katrina to 44 in the year after Katrina, a 37 percent decrease.

In the meantime, the crimes of employers against workers

stacked up. Matt Redd, a New Orleans real estate mogul, filed with

the Department of Labor to sponsor guest workers from countries

such as Mexico, but he apparently lied when he stated that these

H2-B workers had jobs waiting for them. Rather, he was a human

trafficker, and he rented those unfortunate migrant workers out to

garbage collection companies and restaurants at an hourly wage.

Our witness from the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice will share the story of their struggle on behalf of the guest

workers to redress their grievances with Matt Redd, as well as

their struggle to get the Department of Labor to do something

about it.

The stories of violations are abundant. Consider the story of Antonia, which has been documented by the Southern Poverty Law

Center. There is a picture of Antonia there. Now, Antonia has been

living in New Orleans for 4 years. She complained she was never

paid for her work.

She recounts, ‘‘The company owners kept telling us we were

going to receive our checks. First it was Monday, then it was going

to be Wednesday. We would wait in a long line for our paychecks

from 6 p.m. until midnight or 2 a.m., after working all day. When

my turn arrived to get my check, I had already been working 2

weeks, and I was angry because I hadn’t been paid. I had been

working to make money in order to buy food. It was Christmas

time. And after not being paid, I went to New York to visit my chilVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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dren. I had to go there without a cent. Now, 2 months later, I still

haven’t received a single check for that work.’’

Unfortunately, Antonia’s story is not unique. Today our witness,

Mr. Jeffrey Steele, has a very similar story to recount. Part of the

problem seems to be that the Department of Labor was slow to

adapt to the need and to respond to labor abuses against a new immigrant population. For instance, our investigation has revealed

that the New Orleans District Office took 1 year and 4 months

after the hurricanes to hire a new Spanish-speaking investigator,

bringing the total capacity to two. Nearly 2 years later, the office

has only 3 Spanish-speaking investigators out of a total of 12 investigators. At least for workers from Guatemala and Mexico there is

a chance of being helped, but for the workers who are coming from

Brazil there is not a single Portuguese-speaking investigator on

staff. Our witness from the Southern Poverty Law Center will tell

us how this shortcoming has affected workers in New Orleans.

Part of the problem seems to reside with the National Department of Labor office. After the hurricanes deprived hundreds of

thousands of people of their homes, including most, if not all, of the

staff and investigators of the New Orleans Department of Labor office, what supplemental support did the Washington office provide?

Our inquiry reveals that Washington sent the first detailed employee to help for a period of 2 weeks nearly 3 months after the

hurricanes.

Part of the problem seems to be the administration of the law.

Guest workers who came to work in the United States on H2-B

visas are susceptible to other labor violations, as well, oftentimes

after paying a fee for their visa, after paying for a plane ticket, as

well as substantial fee to the labor broker who invited them to

work in the United States. They arrive in the United States only

to find there is no work for them. In many cases they are subjected

to hostile or horrible living conditions, non-payment for overtime,

and non-payment at all.

In worst case these guest workers have their passports and visas

confiscated by employers, rendering them virtual slaves at the

hands of someone who has used legal means to import them into

the United States.

Now, the Department of Labor claims that it has little or no authority to act on behalf of H2-B visa holders. Unlike statutes protecting agricultural workers, or H2-A visa holders, no similar legislation exists to protect non-agricultural guest workers. The Department of Labor, which has the authority to grant or deny certificate

for a foreign labor contract through its Office of Foreign Labor Certification, cannot do so much as deny certification for an employer

who has been prosecuted for labor law violations. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is granted complete authority over

the enforcement of H2-B contract terms.

Now, irrespective of the statutory limitations impeding Department of Labor advocacy on behalf of H2-B workers, the Department

of Labor Wage and Hour Division still has the authority and the

responsibility to prosecute employers for violations of the Federal

Labor Standards Act and the Davis Bacon Act.

The interplay of labor law suspensions, an influx of workers,

huge contractors, and non-enforcement of labor law created an enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
4

vironment, according to some of our witnesses, of virtual lawlessness in New Orleans, an environment they have described to us as

a wild, wild west.

Today I hope we can discover why and how this occurred and,

in hearing from the witnesses, perhaps develop a path toward addressing these issues for the benefit of the people in New Orleans.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. At this time the Chair recognizes Mr. Davis from

Illinois.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

will submit a statement for the record, but I just want to thank you

for calling this hearing.

None of us have ever experienced a tragedy as horrendous and

severe as what has taken place in New Orleans, and I think we

owe the world the opportunity to get as much as a look at what

has taken place after, as we go through the process of rebuilding.

I look forward to the witnesses and again thank you for calling

the hearing. I will submit a statement for the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis follows:]

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Mr. MILLER. I appreciate it very much.

The Chair welcomes to this hearing Mr. Tierney from Massachusetts. Thank you for being present.

At this point I will make some introductions.

I am going to ask the members of the panel first to rise and to

raise your right hands.

It is the policy of our subcommittee to swear in all witnesses before they testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered

in the affirmative. Thank you.

I will introduce each speaker, and after the introduction I will

ask you to give a brief statement of your testimony and to keep the

summary under 5 minutes in duration. I want you to bear in mind

that your complete written statement will be included in the hearing record.

We are going to begin with Mr. Jacob Horowitz. Mr. Horowitz is

an organizer at the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, an organization that advocates on behalf of workers in postKatrina New Orleans. Mr. Horowitz’ role at the Workers Center is

as organizer with the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a

membership lead organization that defends the rights of guest

workers in the Gulf Coast.

Originally from California with a background in union organizing, over the last year Mr. Horowitz has worked directly with hundreds of guest workers in post-Katrina New Orleans and across the

Gulf Coast.

I want to thank you very much for being here, and I would ask

you to proceed.

Mr. SONI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of Mr. Horowitz,

I am speaking. My name is Saket Soni. I am the lead organizer for

the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice. We will be giving this testimony, and Jacob Horowitz will be joining me for the

Q&A session.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. What I will do, then, let me introduce you

and then we will introduce everyone else and then we will begin

with you. OK?

Mr. SONI. Sure.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Saket Soni is a co-founder and organizer for

the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and a member

of Advancement Project, the Workers Justice Center for Racial

Equality and New Orleans Worker Justice Coalition, an independent community-based organization advocating for and organizing

workers in post-Katrina New Orleans. Mr. Soni also works to bring

together immigrant Latinos and displaced New Orleanians. He is

co-author of ‘‘And Injustice for All,’’ a comprehensive documentation of the conditions for workers in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Ms. Jennifer Rosenbaum is staff attorney for the Immigrant Justice Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Founded in 1971,

the Southern Poverty Law Center is a civil rights organization

dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights of minorities, the

poor, and victims of injustice and significant civil rights and social

justice matters.

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The Center’s Immigrant Justice Project represents low-income

immigrant workers in litigation across the southeast. Ms. Rosenbaum has coordinated the Center’s post-Katrina advocacy on behalf

of workers in New Orleans, including serving as lead counsel to migrant workers in several.

Before joining the legal staff at the Immigrant Justice Project,

Ms. Rosenbaum served as a scodant fellow at Texas Rio Grande

Legal Aid representing farm workers in labor and employment litigation.

Mr. Ted Smukler is the director of public policy at Interfaith

Worker Justice. Interfaith Worker Justice uses faith values to organize, educate, and mobilize the religious community in the United

States on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits,

and working conditions for workers, especially low-wage workers.

Mr. Smukler is the lead author of several Interfaith Worker Justice publications, including ‘‘Working on Faith: A Faithful Response

to Worker Abuse in New Orleans,’’ which details how the U.S. Department of Labor fails to enforce labor and employment law in

New Orleans and the country at large, and another publication,

‘‘For You Were Once a Stranger: Immigration in the U.S. through

the Lens of Faith.’’

The final witness on the first panel, Mr. Jeffrey Steele. Mr.

Steele has worked a number of jobs in a wide range of fields, from

mortuary science to culinary arts. He has an environmental justice

degree from Clark College in Atlanta, and it was there that he became active as a homeless advocate. He has worked with Atlanta’s

Hosea Williams Foundation, and was working at a men’s shelter

when he met displaced New Orleans residents after Hurricane

Katrina hit.

Mr. Steele moved to New Orleans to do debris cleanup for various contractors, where he was subject to safety hazards and wage

theft. Mr. Steele filed charges with the Department of Labor in

September 2006, but has not yet received any resolution in the

form of back wages he is entitled to.

I think what we will do, considering your case, Mr. Steele, let’s

start with you, and then we will go down the line.

STATEMENTS OF JEFFREY STEELE, FORMER EMPLOYEE OF

THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS; TED SMUKLER, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, IMMIGRANT WORKER JUSTICE;

JENNIFER ROSENBAUM, STAFF ATTORNEY, IMMIGRANT JUSTICE PROJECT, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER; AND

SAKET SONI AND JACOB HOROWITZ, NEW ORLEANS WORKERS CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY STEELE

Mr. STEELE. My name is Jeffrey Steele. I currently live in Montgomery, AL. I lived in Atlanta for 27 years, and I worked at the

Georgia World Congress Center in Georgia doing trade shows, and

I was a part-time chef. I ran the men’s shelter at night in Atlanta,

GA, and I am a displaced evacuee from New Orleans, and I wanted

to be part of history and I wanted to help rebuild New Orleans.

Pastor Braddy had flyers all over Atlanta, Georgia, to recruit workers for New Orleans—free room, board, free food, pay $10 an

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hour. I left Atlanta October 16th and arrived October 17th. We

started work after being on the road all night at 6 a.m. that morning.

We worked all day for 12 hours with no food, no rest. We had

to sleep in the same van that we came down in for several days.

For the next year I worked for seven different subcontractors

cleaning up in New Orleans: WorkForce Development, Phoenix

Global, Copeland Construction, Express Staff, and JNE. They were

connected to the Omni Pinnacle Waste Management ECC and the

Army Corps of Engineers. I worked for U.S. Boat for Coastal Catering from September 2006, until this February, when I injured my

hand on the job. They are still refusing to pay me Workers Compensation.

The work in New Orleans was very hard. The days and nights

were very long and hot. The work was dangerous because of the

many hazards in the city and the flooding. We were given 1 hour

of safety training. We had no health insurance, no workman’s compensation or other benefits. We worked 16 to 18 hours for 7 days

a week. I lived with 40 to 60 men in a house. We were crammed

into a small apartment or makeshift housing. We had very little to

eat. Restaurants and grocery stores were closed, and even if they

had been open we had no money to buy food. We had to eat relief

handouts or MREs, or most of the time we were starving.

None of the companies paid me correctly for the work I did. The

pay was always very late. Every paycheck was short. There was no

overtime paid. They even took deductions out for housing and food. For the first 3 months I received only $2,000 out of the $17,000

that I earned, no overtime. I tried to get back what was owed to

me. I talked with the law clinic. They sent my case to the Department of Labor in 2006. I hadn’t heard anything for a long period

of time. I checked back. I was told I had to call the woman at DOL.

I called her February 2007. She asked me if I had information

about my previous companies. I didn’t have any current numbers.

In March the woman from DOL called back and asked if I had

more information for her. I gave her what I had. She said she

would file my claim.

When I called back a month later to find out what was happening, she said when she find out she will let me know. I did not hear

anything back from the DOL until Wednesday, June 20th, when a

woman supervisor called me and immediately began what I felt

was an interrogation. She ended abruptly as she had started by

saying she wanted me to call her when I had more information.

She treated me as though I was the bad guy.

I went to New Orleans to be part of history. I did the dirty and

hard work that was needed, and yet I was taken advantage of by

contractor after contractor who crammed workers into filthy living

space, provided almost nothing to eat, offered practically no safety

precautions, no equipment, and paid us late, and much less than

the little than they had promised.

It is not about me. It is not about Jeff. It is about the small men

and women like me who don’t have a voice. A country cannot clean

up after a disaster without people like me. If this country allows

companies to get away with treating hard-working citizens like

they are nothing, then shame on us. I worked hard all my life. I

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paid taxes. I am a U.S. citizen. I have been working since I was

9 years old. I have never been to jail. I have never asked the Government for nothing. If anything like Hurricane Katrina happens

again in this country, I hope you never let anyone treat workers

and the people they are trying to help the way that people was

treated in New Orleans.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Steele follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr.

Steele.

Our next witness is Mr. Ted Smukler.

STATEMENT OF TED SMUKLER

Mr. SMUKLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis, Chairman

Kucinich, Congressman Davis, for the opportunity to testify about

labor law enforcement in New Orleans and the decline in national

capacity and the strategic will of the U.S. Department of Labor. I

almost feel like changing my testimony after hearing Mr. Steele. It

just makes me so angry.

The statement is meant as an overview of issues raised in the

Interfaith Worker Justice Report, ‘‘Working on Faith: A Faithful

Response to Worker Abuse in New Orleans.’’

Congressman Kucinich already read what Interfaith Worker Justice is. We also have 60 affiliates across the country and 16 workers centers, religion labor affiliates.

IWJ has always worked to maintain a partnership with the DOL,

whose mission we strongly support. In fact, Paul DeCamp, who is

going to testify today, recently addressed a hearing on the DOL

and was warmly received by 350 delegates at IWJ’s national conference.

We are not in the business of attacking the DOL, so it was with

great sadness that I witnessed open and flagrant abuse of workers’

rights when I began visiting New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf

Coast after Katrina. Workers often received no pay at all.

All of us watched the ravages of Hurricane Katrina with horror,

but could not have imagined the ongoing abandonment of the people of New Orleans after Katrina’s waters receded. Those who were

abandoned during Katrina are still largely on their own, as new

hands and backs have been imported to New Orleans to do the

heavy lifting.

IWJ conducted a survey of 218 people who had worked in New

Orleans in the year following Katrina. Of workers, 47 percent reported not receiving all of the pay to which they were entitled; 55

percent received no overtime pay for hours above 40; 58 percent

were exposed to dangerous substances at work, such as mold, contaminated water, and asbestos. But of greatest concern, all the

workers we surveyed were completely unaware that the DOL could

help.

IWJ has four major areas of concern today.

The first Chairman Kucinich already spoke about, about all of

the Executive orders from the Bush administration that set up a

lawless economy, a lawless rebuilding process, the suspension of

OSHA, suspension of prevailing wage, the allowance of employers

to not check documents, and the suspension of Affirmative Action.

Second, the DOL lacked the capacity and strategic direction to

deal with this crisis. The number of completed wage and hour investigations in New Orleans dropped by 37 percent in the year following Katrina. It ought to have increased. This should be seen in

the context of a national decline in DOL capacity since the 1970’s.

IWJ interns met Lorenzo at a Honduran eatery in the summer

of 2006. The tissue on the corner of Lorenzo’s eyes was red and

swollen from installing fiberglass insulation with no protective

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gear. He was paid off in cash at the end of the first week, with no

overtime paid for his week of 12-hour days.

There are thousands of Lorenzo’s and Mr. Steele’s, but the DOL

is not going out to find them where they are, at laundromats, at

day labor pickup sites, coffee shops, work sites, congregations. Nonprofit advocates can find them. Where is the DOL?

Our third major concern is that DOL resources are heavily invested in responding to complaints rather than carrying out targeted investigations of regions, industries, and employers that are

known to violate the FLSA. Low-wage workers are highly unlikely

to file complaints.

The DOL, itself, is on record about the effectiveness of targeted

investigations, but these proactive strategies take only 20 percent

of wage and hour investigatory resources.

We recognize that most businesses comply with wage and hour

and OSHA requirements, but there are entire industries and employers and regions that rely on low-wage labor and steal the

wages of workers in order to jack up profit margins. They are bottom feeders. The DOL knows who they are, but their practices are

not stopped. This lowers standards for all U.S. workers.

Fourth, the DOL fails to pursue all available penalties. Employers ordered to pay only back wages with no interest or other fines

may be more encouraged than discouraged to practice wage theft,

so DOL [sic] calls for this committee, if possible, to draft legislation

that would increase wage and hour and OSHA investigators by at

least a third; mandate that the DOL develop a public protocol, including unannounced visits targeting regions, industries, and employers with records of widespread abuses; provide funding for a

partnership between the DOL and faith, labor, and community organizations in New Orleans and in six other cities with widespread

wage theft; mandate that employers who violate wage and hour

pay penalties and interest in addition to all back wages owed; and

request a GAO investigation of DOL enforcement practices.

Our religious traditions hold that workers must be treated fairly

and with dignity, and that wage theft is a sin against a just God.

In Deuteronomy 24 verse 14 God’s law demands that you shall not

withhold the wages of the poor and needy laborers.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smukler follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. Rosenbaum.

STATEMENT OF JENNIFER ROSENBAUM

Ms. ROSENBAUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee.

I want to thank you for not forgetting about this issue almost 2

years after Hurricane Katrina. I can testify that Mr. Steele has not

forgotten, Antonia has not forgotten, and that thousands of other

workers who remain unpaid for their hard work rebuilding New

Orleans and the Gulf Coast have not forgotten, nor have the advocates at this table, whose organizations have hired staff, have

worked around the clock, have increased their language capacity,

and have done the other work necessary to try to recover the

wages, to recover liquidated damages, and to change the practices

of the significant contractors in the region.

In our opinion, the Department of Labor has had an inadequate

response to the disproportionate scope of the disaster in New Orleans. I think everyone here is familiar. It was well reported on the

television and in the newspapers the epic wage theft that was

going on. While low-wage workers and their families always suffer

when they are not paid or underpaid, particularly in New Orleans

the suffering was acute. Because of the destruction of large parts

of the city, the regular safety net works that might be in place in

other places when workers go unpaid did not exist.

As Mr. Steele has testified, workers were relying on their employers for housing and food, and when they went unpaid they

faced retaliation and termination for complaining about not being

paid in compliance with Federal law. They not only risked continued nonpayment; they risked eviction and hunger and being

thrown out onto the streets.

Where was the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division as

all this was going on? As Mr. Smukler has testified, workers certainly didn’t know. I mean, that has been our experience in communicating with over 1,000 workers in our advocacy, education,

and litigation efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

We know some things that they didn’t do. They didn’t immediately after the hurricane begin distributing contract information

and educational materials to workers where they could be located.

Workers repeatedly told us that they knew that they were being

paid illegally and they didn’t know where to turn.

The Department of Labor failed to make staff available at a time

when workers could complain. When people were working 80 to 100

hours a week, it was oftentimes impossible to call the Department

of Labor during business hours. And the Department failed to have

a plan to communicate with workers after hours, on the weekends.

They also failed to have language access to communicate with

those workers in the language that they speak.

They failed to accept and record adequate complaints. We have

report after report of workers calling the Department and being

cursorily dismissed without a more than 5-minute telephone investigation into the worker’s complaint. As Mr. Steele has testified,

workers, themselves, are not under the obligation to have complete

pay records or complete contact information on their employers. As

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the Supreme Court has said, when employers fail to meet their obligations to provide records of people’s hours worked and wages

owed, then the worker can reasonably testify to what has happened.

As we also know, the contracting schemes are complex, obviously

requiring a more than 5-minute investigation into whether an employer, for instance, is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The subcommittee, therefore, really faces a challenge in accessing the information that will be presented by the Department of

Labor, because many, perhaps the majority of complaints by workers were never even recorded.

The Department of Labor’s continued inaccessibility to migrant

workers repeatedly hindered investigations of the complaints that

were made. For instance, they didn’t communicate to workers during the investigations and at times during the settlement process,

and even when settlement proceeds were received they did not

communicate with the workers about how to receive those proceeds.

As Mr. Steele has testified, many other workers have told us

they didn’t know what was going on in the investigations, they felt

that the Department of Labor was hostile, and in some cases workers felt like the Department of Labor was an agent of the employer

and therefore did not continue to help the investigation.

We had a worker report that his investigation was initially dismissed for lack of records when he actually had records, because

he understood the Department of Labor investigator to actually be

an agent of the employer and, fearing retaliation, refused to turn

over those records. It wasn’t until we were able to intervene and

explain the investigative context and get those records that the investigation was able to be reopened.

The Department of Labor also failed to prioritize, in our opinion,

the cases that would have made the biggest difference on limited

resources. They failed to bring cases on behalf of groups of workers—in fact, groups of subcontracted workers for the same general

contractor—and they failed to investigate the general contractors

that in many cases were jointly liable for the unpaid wages.

We have two Fair Labor Standards collective action cases that

have been settled against general contractors and subcontractors

together, and we believe that is an important step in terms of making a structural difference in the way workers are being treated in

New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast.

Finally, as I said before, the Department of Labor has at times

even failed to investigate and ensure that workers receive the

checks that were settled on their behalf. We have been communicating with workers who almost a year after a settlement check

was obtained by the Department of Labor have still been unable

to physically possess that check and those unpaid wages. The Department of Labor has sent those checks to the wrong offices in

States where they don’t live, has forced them to communicate with

Department of Labor staff who don’t speak the same language as

the workers speak, and has otherwise set up obstacles to actually

receiving those unpaid wages, even when they have been recovered

from the employer.

For all those reasons, we have included recommendations in our

report, and we hope that the committee will consider how to interVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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vene in this matter further. It is important to recover unpaid

wages for people that are still waiting to be paid for doing this

work. It is important to change the nature of the employment relationships that continue to happen in New Orleans and on the Gulf

Coast. And it is important to ensure that the lesson from migrant

workers in New Orleans is not that Federal labor law doesn’t apply

to you. Right now that is the lesson, and that is a lesson that is

being carried back across the country as migrant workers return to

the States across the United States where they came from.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rosenbaum follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

I want to repeat that your extensive report that you filed with

this committee will be included in the record of this hearing, and,

as with Mr. Smukler and the others who are here as advocates of

workers, I have to say that I am impressed at the depth of your

report. I think staff would agree that it is a quite significant, detailed report, and I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Mr. Soni, thank you.

STATEMENT OF SAKET SONI AND JACOB HOROWITZ

Mr. SONI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity to testify about the utter failure of the

U.S. Government to ensure that Federal agencies, particularly the

Department of Labor, play a role in ensuring a just reconstruction,

a moral reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

My name is Saket Soni. This is Jacob Horowitz. I am the lead

organizer at the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice.

The Center was founded in response to, on one hand, the systematic exclusion of African American workers after Hurricane

Katrina, and on the other hand the systematic exploitation of immigrant workers after Hurricane Katrina.

The exclusion and exploitation continues today. Two years after

Hurricane Katrina, African Americans continue to be locked out of

the reconstruction, while immigrant workers continue to be locked

in.

We represent hundreds of workers, residents, day laborers, and

guest workers who are the heroes of the reconstruction. Over 700

workers testified in our report that documented the issues of work

after Hurricane Katrina. Workers reported horrific conditions:

homelessness, toxic workplaces, deportation on payday, police hiring workers at gunpoint, human trafficking. All of these were stories that were common knowledge after Hurricane Katrina.

The climate of abuse was created by public policy decisions that,

Chairman Kucinich, you laid out in your remarks—the suspension

of Davis-Bacon, the suspension of Affirmative Action—and, as

these reports suggest, the creation of a contractor regime that dispensed with accountability.

Today, 2 years after Hurricane Katrina, workers continue to face

abuse.

I would like to tell you the story of one group of guest workers.

Our Center represents hundreds of guest workers. These are foreign temporary workers on H2-B visas who come from many countries, over 10 countries, to the Gulf Coast. They are brought in

through companies that certify through the Department of Labor

that they can find no U.S. worker willing or able to do the work.

One particular guest worker who called us late one night was a

man named Fernando Rivera. Fernando is a young man from Mexico City, and he called with an urgent plea for help just before

Christmas, 2006. Fernando’s employer was a company named L.A.

Labor, whose boss was a gentleman named Matt Redd. He and his

coworkers had been recruited in Mexico by Matt Redd, a Louisiana

resident. Workers had responded to flyers in hotels, word of mouth,

and advertisements.

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Matt Redd promised Fernando $8 an hour for a hotel job or a

restaurant job in New Orleans. He charged workers $400 for air

fare, and then proceeded to confiscate their passports, pack them

into vans, and transport them by road to West Lake, LA, which is

about 4 hours away from New Orleans. Matt Redd then sequestered the workers in apartments owned by his own real estate company, Redd Properties, and charged them rent. And then, instead

of placing him in the hotel jobs that he promised, he leased the

workers out to various businesses across the Lake Charles area.

Fernando, himself, was leased to a local restaurant and to a ranch

owner. Other workers found themselves leased to casinos, garbage

collection companies, and car washes. Fernando also did construction work for which he was never paid.

Meanwhile, Matt Redd continued to be in illegal possession of

their passports. Fernando had repeatedly asked Matt Redd for his

passport and never received it, and had been threatened if he

asked for it again.

So in January 2006, just after the New Year, with the Center’s

assistance, Fernando organized a meeting of the employees. For

Fernando, this was particularly important because his mother had

been diagnosed with liver cancer. He needed his passport to go

back home. He needed the money to pay for a transplant, and so

he was desperate for his passport.

The workers held a protest in front of Matt Redd’s office, and,

with the help of press and community allies, retrieved the passport.

A month later they held a protest in front of the Department of

Labor demanding that the DOL turn over the labor certification for

LA Labor and that the Department of Labor decertify Matt Redd

and hand over a list of all of the post-Katrina H2-B employers. To

this day we have not received a response on any of those requests.

A couple of days after the protest outside the Department of

Labor a special agent of the Fraud and Racketeering Division of

the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General contacted

us. He read the press accounts. After many, many instances of rescheduling, the special agent finally met with and interviewed

workers, a second group of workers who had been brought in by

Matt Redd as welders, promised $18 an hour, and come in and

found that the jobs just didn’t exist. They had been languishing for

weeks and weeks in the apartments waiting for work that just

never arrived.

The agent told the workers that they had a very strong case, that

this could be visa fraud, but that it was their responsibility and not

Matt Redd’s to prove that they were skilled workers. In other

words, Matt Redd would just say that the reason they weren’t

working was that they weren’t skilled.

After many phone calls we gave evidence to the special agent. We

asked recently if the agent had been investigating the case. He

simply said that it was confidential. When we informed the agent

that Matt Redd had the original documents proving the workers’

skill level, the agent made no indication that he would be attempting to contact them for these documents.

So the special agent has not yet followed up with us. The Department of Labor has not furnished the labor certifications. And FerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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nando is now back at home in Mexico City trying to raise money

again for his mother’s chemotherapy.

Thousands of guest workers like Fernando have come to the Gulf

Coast. We will provide a set of recommendations, but, very quickly,

workers, themselves, believe that it is very important that the Department of Labor take responsibility to aggressively educate H2-

B workers on their rights, to make sure that employers who don’t

follow the law are decertified, and to make sure that the Department of Labor conduct random audits and investigations on H2-B

employers, and, most importantly, that in the context of the high

level of unemployment in post-Katrina Gulf Coast, any claim that

you cannot find U.S. workers who are willing or able to do these

jobs should really be scrutinized.

In the final analysis made by H2-B workers, the guest worker

program, itself, is deeply flawed. The condition these guest workers

are in are a window into what workers across the country will face

if Congress expands the program. As long as workers are tied to

one employer, as long as they come into this country with debt, and

as long as there is no regulation or policing of employers or recruiters, employers will have extraordinary power over workers, and all

workers will find themselves in situations like Fernando’s.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Soni follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Horowitz, did you want to add anything to

that?

Mr. HOROWITZ. I can take questions. The only thing I would add

is that I have been there on the ground with Fernando and with

the other hundreds of workers.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. We will reserve your comments during the

question period then.

Mr. HOROWITZ. Great.

Mr. KUCINICH. We are now at the period of asking questions.

One of the things, Mr. Soni, that you just said in your report was

that you were contacted by someone from the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General.

Mr. SONI. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. And when was that first contact?

Mr. SONI. This was March 16th.

Mr. KUCINICH. What year?

Mr. SONI. This year. This was very briefly after the workers held

a protest outside of the Department of Labor in New Orleans.

Mr. KUCINICH. And has the Inspector General’s office had any

contact with you since then?

Mr. SONI. We had several instances of contact with this particular agent, this special agent, but not outside of that with the office,

in general.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. I am just going to tell you that, while it is

not usual for the Office of Inspector General to divulge the status

of an investigation to anyone, including Congress, our committee

staff will take note of your testimony, which raises serious questions about the performance of the Inspector General’s Office, and

we will contact the Inspector General for the Department of Labor

to make a determination as to whether or not they are proceeding,

and we will let you know, because we are very concerned about

this. If there is an investigation ongoing, it is really not my business to inquire into what they are investigating, but it is my business that they investigate. So we will followup on that. I just wanted to mention that.

I have one other question.

Mr. SONI. The workers will be very gratified to hear that.

Mr. KUCINICH. And this is what we do. I just want to ask another question. In your testimony you said, ‘‘Matt Redd then confiscated their passports, packed them into vans, transported them

across the border to the town of West Lake, LA, some 4 hours away

from New Orleans.’’ Did anyone ever contact the Justice Department to raise a question as to whether or not kidnapping and/or

trafficking charges could be filed against this person, Mr. Horowitz?

Mr. HOROWITZ. Yes. In fact, after the initial protest that the

workers held in front of Matt Redd’s office where they were able

to get their passports back, after that Fernando and another worker who experienced the same problems went and talked with an

agent of the FBI about this instance. It was an officer named

Renee Luna, who took some notes on the story but never followed

up.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am just going to ask the staff of this committee

to followup with an inquiry to the FBI about this, because, you

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know, this testimony raises certain questions about the extent to

which Federal law is violated with respect to either kidnapping

and/or trafficking, so we will followup on that.

What is the next point?

Mr. SONI. I just wanted to add that the agent of the FBI who

interviewed Fernando and other workers in our presence was personally sympathetic but very unaware of the realities of immigration and the realities of the H2-B visa.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Let me ask you something, to Mr. Soni and

Mr. Horowitz. You talked about a protest in front of the Department of Labor. I may know the answer, but I have to ask you why.

Mr. SONI. Well, there were a couple of reasons. First of all, we

felt that the workers deserved a direct interaction with the Department of Labor and the press. Workers had already spoken to the

parish sheriff’s office, to the FBI, had written to the Department

of Labor, and that hadn’t gotten them anywhere, so it was partly

to dramatize the urgency with which these workers’ issues had to

be resolved.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. I have used 5 minutes. What we are going

to do is go back and forth here. I am going to ask this panel to stay

and we are going to have at least another round and maybe a third

round.

I want to yield to Mr. Davis from Illinois.

Mr. Davis, thank you very much for your presence here.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Steele, let me ask, did you try any local officials at all to try

to get some help?

Mr. STEELE. Did I do what?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Contact any local officials, like State representatives, the mayor’s office, or city council members, or the

Governor’s office, or anybody on the ground in New Orleans to——

Mr. STEELE. Yes. Yes, I did, Congressman. One instance the

week before Thanksgiving of 2005, about 40 guys from Atlanta had

to go back home on a school bus and it took overnight for them to

get home, and we was at the ECC office because there had been

no pay. We hadn’t had a paycheck since we had been in New Orleans from this guy. I tried calling the mayor and I left word with

someone at the mayor’s office, and I also tried calling the press.

Nobody showed up to the ECC office in New Orleans to try to help

us at all, and I was just trying, and kept trying. I was talking

about it to everybody, and it seemed like the farther I’d bet with

somebody, I got shut off. But then I got hooked up with Gomez,

something of a labor guy, and then he hooked me up with some

other people from the ACLIOU.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So you really felt like you were in a noman’s land, I mean, just——

Mr. STEELE. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. There was nothing that you could put

your finger on or——

Mr. STEELE. Couldn’t put my finger on nothing. You know, it was

nobody there to turn to. It was nobody there. If you called somebody, you always got a busy signal, or you had to put on a recording. You kept putting it on a recording and no one never called

back. I had a phone. I had a phone and I gave them my number.

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I kept a 504 number just up until 2 months ago, and never heard

nothing from nobody within that whole year.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Smukler, you indicate that 47 percent of the workers that you have come into contact with reported

not receiving any pay at all?

Mr. SMUKLER. No. The 47 percent didn’t receive all the pay they

were entitled to.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And, of course, nobody got overtime. I

mean, were there any representations made that people should

have received overtime?

Mr. SMUKLER. Well, I am not quite sure I understand the question. It is the law.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. You say that people did not receive overtime pay. Were they aware that perhaps they should have received

any overtime pay?

Mr. SMUKLER. We tried to followup with people afterwards, but

in the survey the question was put, ‘‘were you paid overtime for

any hours past 40 a week,’’ and I think it was 55 percent said no.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Soni and Mr. Horowitz, the kind of

work that the companies were suggesting that they could not find

anybody locally to do in order for guest workers to get visas, what

kind of work was that, engineers?

Mr. SONI. Well, in the greater New Orleans area in Louisiana

and the Gulf Coast, in general, right now it covers just about any

kind of work, from a maintenance clerk to front desk clerk to a

housekeeper in a hotel, for $6.09 an hour. We have guest workers

working in little sandwich shops and gas stations, guest workers

working in carnivals, guest workers working in a large number of

unskilled areas.

We also have guest workers who are skilled pipefitters, welders,

and skilled laborers, but in large part in Louisiana the guest workers are not particularly skilled.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So there were just no people left in New

Orleans who lived there or who were residents?

Mr. SONI. Well, in reality there are a large number of people in

New Orleans who are unemployed and who would take these jobs.

In fact, there is a hotel in New Orleans called the Astro Crown

Plaza, which was home to hundreds of unemployed FEMA voucherholding African American survivors of Hurricane Katrina. This

hotel brought guest workers from Peru, the Dominican Republic,

and Bolivia. In a major lawsuit that workers who we organized

filed with the Southern Poverty Law Center and that we worked

on with Jennifer Rosenbaum here, we, in the course of our conversations with the workers, found that there were a large number

of African Americans living in the hotel unemployed immediately

before the workers came, and that, nonetheless, the hotel owner

filed a labor certification with the Department of Labor saying that

he could not find any U.S. worker willing or able to do the job at

that time.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So they were deliberately bypassing these

individuals in order to bring in guest workers who they could exploit?

Mr. SONI. Well, it is very hard for us and for me, personally, to

tell a story of intention, but certainly the impact is that low-wage

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African American workers are left out while guest workers are

brought in. But the important thing also to note is that low-wage

African American workers are left out of, say, $8 an hour or $10

an hour jobs. Those jobs are then turned into temporary hourly

paid $6 an hour jobs, and guest workers are brought in, and as

guest workers they have fewer rights. They are tied to that employer, so what the employer gets out of it is a much more exploitable, vulnerable, temporary worker.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

I would like to just have one more round of questioning for this

first panel.

Ms. Rosenbaum, you in your testimony talk about your independent litigation has shown that recovery of unpaid minimum and

overtime wages and liquidated damages from general contractors

and their subcontractors who jointly employed migrant reconstruction workers is quite possible. Are you aware of any general contractors or subcontractors who told you they didn’t get paid by the

Government, therefore they couldn’t pay you?

Ms. ROSENBAUM. In both of the cases that we have filed, the contractors were not Government contractors. But we did hear rumors

from subcontractors at various places in the subcontracting chains

that was their excuse. That is part of the reason why we think it

is very important for any investigation of wage and hour violations

to investigate all the possible joint employers, because it is clear in

this context, just as it is in the farm labor context and the garment

worker context regularly, that the significant contractors have the

ability to control whether wages are paid. They are monitoring

whether the work is being done correctly. They are monitoring

whether people have the materials that they need. And they could

certainly monitor to ensure that Federal minimum wage and overtime and Davis-Bacon wages——

Mr. KUCINICH. Have you taken the time to do a chart, you know,

Contractor XYZ, Subcontractors ABCDEFGHI, Contractor paid

subcontractors who did or didn’t pay? You know, I think it would

be helpful if you know this, because what we obviously need to do

is to see the extent to which there might be a conspiracy not to

pay, to look at the relationships between contractors and then to

see if this issue that you raised about those who jointly employed

migrant reconstruction workers, what their business practices were

to begin with.

Ms. ROSENBAUM. I think the other really important issue is systemic mislabeling of employees as independent contractors in order

to avoid overtime payments, to avoid Federal tax liability, and to

avoid other kinds of——

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Now you are talking about involving the IRS.

This is getting to be an interesting hearing here, because this is

a significant issue of people who are misclassified.

Mr. Davis, you know we have talked about this in terms of workers in this country who are misclassified so that they are not paid,

so benefits aren’t paid, taxes aren’t paid.

Again, staff, this is an issue that may also require or will require

that we contact the Internal Revenue Service with respect to these

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specific contractors to see the extent to which they may actually be

conspiring to defraud the Government or conspiring not to file their

responsibilities to withhold taxes. This is very helpful testimony

here.

Now, can you elaborate, Ms. Rosenbaum, on the case in which

workers did not receive their checks, the Paul Davis National case?

Can you tell this committee a little bit about that?

Ms. ROSENBAUM. Sure. This is a case that we originally identified about 25 workers who were recruited outside of New Orleans

in Florida by a labor broker, were transported to the Gulf Coast,

and left, worked a week to several weeks, and then were left without any payment at all and were just left at the worksite. The contractor left without paying them.

It was a case we originally brought to the Department of Labor

believing that they had the particular investigatory capacity to locate all affected workers. This is something that the Federal Department of Labor has in a much different way than private attorneys have, where, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, opt-in procedures in order to recover systemic unpaid wages. Private attorneys and their clients have to locate individual workers and make

them opt in, whereas the Department of Labor has the ability to

recover unpaid wages for all affected workers.

So in this case we brought the case to the Department of Labor.

They spoke with a handful, I would say—I don’t have the investigative file—of the workers involved, but they certainly did not speak

with the majority of the complainants. The majority of the complainants continued to call our office to ask such basic questions as,

is there an investigation going on? We are not talking about confidential investigative data being released during an investigation;

we are talking about people who have made complaints to the Department of Labor knowing whether their complaint is under investigation or is closed, knowing that it on average takes 6 months to

complete an investigation or 3 months, having the contact name

and telephone number of a professional at the Department of Labor

who they can call and ask a question about how much longer the

investigation is intended to take.

Some wages were recovered on behalf of those workers, although,

once again, recovered without being in contact with the majority of

the complainants. We think this is a particularly problematic way

to run an investigation, given our experience of the faulty records

of subcontractors on the Gulf Coast. In our wage cases, we have

had to audit all records that we have received in order to ensure

that the wages and hours recorded are actually the hours worked

by immigrant workers, and in many cases the faulty records seriously under-report hours that people worked. And so if cases are

being settled by the Department of Labor complaints based on

faulty subcontractor records, they are being under-valued significantly, and workers are not being given a chance to even weigh in

on whether the records accurately reflect that.

When the checks were obtained, many of them were sent to an

office in a State where the majority of workers did not live and

where no one in that office spoke the language that the majority

of these workers speak in order to even communicate about getting

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their check to them. And as far as we know, there are workers that

remained unpaid an unable to receive these checks.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

I would just have one final question to ask of Mr. Steele before

we end this panel after Mr. Davis.

What is the status of your case now? Have you been paid?

Mr. STEELE. No, sir, I haven’t. Like I said, I talked with the law

clinic for over a year, and I finally got in touch with them back in

February to see what was happening. The girl, Vanessa, told me

that I needed to call the DOL in New Orleans instead of the DOL

calling me, so when I called the DOL to find out what was up she

asked me a whole bunch of questions. What were the people who

I was working for? Did I have any information? I told her blankly

that she has a Government computer, she can track these folks

down more quickly than I can, and then she said I need to do this.

So I went out and I got help finding out where these people were

at and I called her back and gave her the information. Then, when

she filed my claim, like I said, I haven’t heard anything from these

folks until, like, last week. Then her supervisor called me, started

interrogating me on the phone like I was the bad guy.

Mr. KUCINICH. How much are you owed?

Mr. STEELE. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of about

30,000.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Just one question, Mr. Chairman, and it

calls for sort of an opinion or a speculation.

When we began the hearing we talked about the fact that some

of the labor laws were, in fact, suspended. I guess the idea of suspending them would have been that it was going to, in some way,

facilitate the rebuilding or make it easier or speed up the process

of rebuilding New Orleans.

Would any of you care to speculate as to whether or not this has

in any way facilitated, made it easier, or speeded up the rebuilding

of New Orleans?

Mr. STEELE. Well, I will do this. All right. You want to know

about the process that was going on?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes. Did it make it easier? Did it speed

it up? Did it make it faster?

Mr. STEELE. No, it didn’t. The only thing that made it speedy

and faster was when, after this hurricane happened, we went in

and we started down in the Elysian Field area—that is down by

the 9th Ward. It was up in the 9th Ward area around the French

Quarter. They wanted to get that cleaned up, but you still had

other areas in New Orleans that are still in shambles, like

Gentilly. I forget the parish on our side, going out by Lake Charles,

all up in that area is still houses off of Schiff road, there are neighborhoods that are still blocked in. No one has gone in there to do

any cleanup at all. You know, that is neighborhoods that are still

in shambles.

Ms. ROSENBAUM. I would like to say I think it sped up the entry

of bad faith, fly by-night subcontractors who got a sense of what

was likely to happen and accurately predicted the non-enforcement

of labor law and the ability to extract money that should have been

going to the people who were working these jobs out of the system,

and it detracted from the rebuilding because many workers like

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Mr. Steele, after 3 and 4 months, the skilled workers who were

there because they wanted to support New Orleans and the Gulf

Coast, ultimately had to leave because they couldn’t risk the continued nonpayment.

Mr. SONI. I just wanted to add that the pattern of what happened was that, by suspending the Davis-Bacon Act, it allowed subcontractors to hire the cheapest worker. By lifting sanctions on employers, allowing them to employ undocumented immigrants, it

incentivized the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants. The

suspension of Affirmative Action basically shut a large number of

people out of returning home. These would have been the first people to come back home to areas like Central City and Gentilly, and

if they had come back then they would have repopulated those

areas.

So as a result of these very contradictory public policies, what

you had was a reconstruction that lacked any kind of coherent

whole or clarity, with the result that now New Orleans is a patchwork of neighborhoods with a home here that has been rebuilt, a

Burger King there that is a little homestead Burger King established in the middle of nowhere, and no real coherence in terms of

residents who are able to come back.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes.

Mr. SMUKLER. I would like to add that it could have been so different, because, you know, it was a complete tragedy, but it offered

a possibility for a high road strategy for rebuilding New Orleans

based on, you know, Government supporting industries that paid

living wages and paid health benefits and encouraging people who

were made refugees to come back, you know. Instead, as all of my

colleagues have said, it has created a situation where it encouraged

the worst possible low road practices.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you all so very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Davis.

Before dismissing the first panel here, I would like to introduce

the ranking member of this committee, who is our partner in so

many of these hearings, the Honorable Darrell Issa of California.

Do you have a statement to make or anything to say?

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I will put my statement in for the

record.

I would only ask that additional material from George Mason be

placed in the record.

Mr. KUCINICH. So ordered, without objection.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Darrell E. Issa and the information referred to follow:]

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Mr. ISSA. I thank the witnesses. I apologize. I just returned from

overseas, but I appreciate your testimony. Clearly, this committee

has a lot more to learn from mistakes made at Federal, State, and

local level before, during, and after this tragedy, and your part in

helping us understand some of the continued mistakes in the immediate aftermath will be helpful, God willing, before the next disaster which inevitably will hit somewhere in the country. I thank

you for your testimony.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank Mr. Issa.

Again, on behalf of the subcommittee, we are all very grateful for

the time that you have taken to be here and to share with us your

stories, and for the forbearance that you have demonstrated in having to live these conditions and the suffering that you have had to

go through that you have now communicated to us, and for your

advocacy of the cause for those whose voices you are representing

here today. So thanks to all of you.

This ends the first panel, and we will now go to the next panel,

the gentleman from the Department of Labor.

I want to welcome the representatives from the Department of

Labor who are here. We have information for all three.

First, I would like to introduce Paul DeCamp.

Mr. DeCamp, welcome.

Mr. DeCamp is the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division

of the Employment Standards Administration under the U.S. Department of Labor, a position which he has held since August 2006.

Prior to his appointment by President Bush, Mr. DeCamp served

as a senior policy advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for

Employment Standards, and before working in the public sector he

practiced law with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher.

Under Mr. DeCamp, the Wage and Hour Division is responsible

for enforcing many of our Nation’s most important labor laws, including the minimum wage, overtime pay, the Family and Medical

Leave Act, and the Davis-Bacon Act, which governs the prevailing

wage.

He is also here with Dr. William Carlson. Dr. Carlson is the Administrator of the Office of Foreign Labor Certification in the Employment and Training Administration under the U.S. Department

of Labor. This particular administration is responsible for administering foreign labor certification programs, including temporary

certification such as H2-A and H2-B programs and permanent certification such as H1-B, H1-C, and D–1 programs.

Finally, Mr. Alexander Passantino is the Deputy Administrator

of the Wage and Hour Division of the Employment Standards Administration under the U.S. Department of Labor. Before holding

his current position, he was an associate in the law firm of Hunton

and Williams dealing with labor and employment issues.

I understand that Mr. Passantino and Dr. Carlson are here to assist Mr. DeCamp in answering the subcommittee’s questions.

It is the policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify, and I would

ask that all of you who are going to be involved in this process will

rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record reflect that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you.

As with panel one, I ask that each witness give an oral summary

of his testimony—in this case Mr. DeCamp—and keep in mind that

the summary can be under 5 minutes in duration. Your entire

statement will be included in the record.

May we begin? Thank you.

I want to indicate for the purpose of the record that our subcommittee is pleased to be joined by another one of our distinguished Members, the gentlelady from California, the Honorable

Diane Watson. Thank you.

You may proceed, sir.

STATEMENT OF PAUL DECAMP, ADMINISTRATOR, WAGE AND

HOUR DIVISION, EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM

L. CARLSON, PH.D., ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF FOREIGN

LABOR CERTIFICATION, EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; AND ALEXANDER J. PASSANTINO, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, WAGE AND

HOUR DIVISION, EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Mr. DECAMP. Thank you.

Chairman Kucinich, Ranking Member Issa, and distinguished

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the efforts of the Department of

Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in New Orleans and throughout

the Gulf Coast following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and

Rita. The dedicated men and women of the Wage and Hour Division have done and continue to do a remarkable job under these

extraordinary circumstances. I am honored to have the chance to

highlight their efforts, to discuss the challenges that we have faced,

and to address some of the agency’s strategies for overcoming those

challenges.

For starters, it is important to understand what the Wage and

Hour Division is and how it carries out its mission. We enforce

many of the Nation’s most important and broadly applicable employment laws. Under normal circumstances, most of our enforcement activity, around 80 percent, involves investigating complaints

that we receive from workers alleging a violation of one or more of

our laws. We also recognize that certain types of violations are less

likely to generate complaints, so with our remaining enforcement

resources we conduct directed investigations. These cases, initiated

in the absence of a complaint, target particular industries or employers where we believe there is a substantial likelihood of noncompliance.

The agency’s enforcement history shows us that low-wage industries tend to have significant compliance issues. In businesses such

as garment, retail, restaurants, construction, health care, janitorial

services, and others, we see patterns of violations involving failure

to pay for all hours worked, failure to pay minimum wage, failure

to keep records, and a host of other problems.

Experience also teaches us that low-wage workers are less likely

than other workers to complain about violations, and this is true

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for many reasons. These workers are less likely to know their

rights. They are often afraid to complain of violations for fear of

losing their jobs. Many of these workers also have limited English

language proficiency. And in many of these businesses, as well as

in agriculture, we see substantial numbers of undocumented workers. These workers, in particular, are extremely reluctant to file a

complaint with any Federal agency for fear of being arrested and

deported.

Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a large number of workers, including undocumented workers, moved to the Gulf Coast to

pursue jobs in construction and debris removal, as well as serve in

positions with hotels and casinos. At the same time, given the

amount of Federal Government contract work to be done to clean

up and to rebuild the region, many new, inexperienced, under-capitalized businesses sprang up as subcontractors and moved to the

Gulf Coast. Thus, the work force in New Orleans and the Gulf

Coast, more broadly, saw a major influx of workers who are less

likely to complain when their wage rights are violated.

To make matters worse, many of the employers in the region,

particularly on large Government contracts, were unfamiliar with

the Federal wage and hour laws, and there were certainly employers in the region who had no intention of complying with the law.

The very nature of the work performed also presented enforcement challenges. The geographic scope of the work was very broad

and varied, and workers clearing debris in one neighborhood on a

given day might be working in a different neighborhood or a different city entirely the next day. Many of these workers also do not

know their employer’s name, beyond perhaps a first name, and

many of them have no idea that they are working on a Federal contract.

Under these circumstances, as set out in more detail in my written testimony, it has been much more difficult than usual for the

agency to conduct its enforcement activities. We have taken a number of steps to overcome these challenges.

First, we have asked for significantly more resources. The pending budget request for 2008 seeks an increase of $16.7 million and

136 employees over the 2006 and 2007 funding levels.

Second, with local staff bolstered by 33 investigators and 5 managers from across the country, we have conducted a large number

of directed investigations in the Gulf Coast. So far we have opened

more than 430 hurricane-related cases, and we have recovered millions of dollars in back wages for workers in the region.

Third, we have engaged in extensive public outreach to inform

workers of their rights under the laws we enforce, as well as how

to contact us for further information or to make a complaint. We

have a toll-free hotline where workers can receive assistance in

Spanish, Portuguese, and close to 150 other languages.

Fourth, we have worked closely with several major contracting

agencies, as well as the contractor community, to make sure that

contractors understand their obligations and that the necessary

wage rates are incorporated into these contracts.

Fifth, we have partnered with many community and advocacy

groups, including Hispanic Apostolate, the Mississippi Immigrants

Rights Alliance, and the Workplace Justice Clinic at Loyola Law

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School in New Orleans, to receive information about potential violations and to get the message out that workers can and should

feel comfortable coming to the Wage and Hour Division with their

issues.

Our enforcement strategies in the Gulf Coast continue to evolve

as we gain information and experience regarding the latest compliance challenges, as well as what works best in response. We do not

have all the answers, but we are always open to new ideas and assistance from anyone who shares our commitment to protecting our

Nation’s workers.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. DeCamp follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the gentleman for his testimony.

I think any one of us who has listened to the testimony of the

preceding panel would agree that your responsibilities must at

times be quite daunting, so we have compassion for that. At the

same time, the comments of the first panel I am sure had to be of

great concern to you. Am I correct?

Mr. DECAMP. They were of concern, but I would say they were

of concern in part because I think they reflect a misunderstanding

of the work that we have done in the region. I have no doubt about

the sincerity of the panelists who care about these workers, and I

applaud their efforts, but I think that there has been a misunderstanding.

For example, the representation that we have reduced our enforcement somehow in the Gulf Coast or in New Orleans following

the hurricane is simply wrong. In the year following Katrina, we

opened approximately 300—more than 300 hurricane-related cases

in the Gulf Coast.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me, if I may, just go over some of the suggestions that I think were offered in good faith——

Mr. DECAMP. Sure.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. By the Interfaith Worker Justice

group, where they are asking, among other things, that the Department of Labor develop a public protocol, including unannounced

visits, targeting regions, industries, and employers with records of

widespread abuses. How do you respond to that?

Mr. DECAMP. We already do that. I agree with their recommendation that we should be doing that, and we do. I would

note that, although in the ordinary course about 80 percent of our

work is in response to complaints that we receive, we specifically

recognize that in the Gulf Coast, because of the large influx of undocumented workers and other low-wage workers, we have had to

adjust our enforcement strategy.

So, for example, in the first year following the hurricane, close

to half of our cases were cases that we initiated, as opposed to complaint cases, and in the second year following the hurricane it was

more than 80 percent of our work was cases that we initiated, as

opposed to sitting back and waiting for employee complaints. So we

have had to adjust our approach, and we have really gone to great

lengths to do that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Tell me something. Help me figure this out. According to our staff report, the number of Department of Labor investigations in New Orleans decreased from 70 in the year before

Katrina to 44 in the year after Katrina, a 37 percent decrease. Are

you disputing that? Are you saying that is not true, that you actually have more investigations and not less?

Mr. DECAMP. Two points. Yes, the numbers are wrong, but, more

importantly, the number doesn’t tell the whole story. What the

number reflects is the 12 months preceding Katrina versus the 11

months following Katrina. Now, what that also reflects is work that

was done in the city of New Orleans, the city limits, proper, involving employers who had addresses in New Orleans. That ignores the

fact that many of the cases, perhaps most of the cases that we handled involved employers who came in from outside of New Orleans,

who had addresses that were outside of New Orleans, and thereVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00156 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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fore many of the cases—as I said, we had over 300 hurricane-related cases that we opened in that first year.

We had cases that were not handled by the New Orleans District

Office, even though the workers and the violations may have been

in New Orleans. If the employer was based in, say, Kansas City or

Seattle, or any of the 19 other offices where we had investigations

being conducted, those would be benefiting the workers in New Orleans and in the Gulf Coast, but not necessarily reflected in that

situation.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, did your case load, for example, in New Orleans increase after the hurricanes?

Mr. DECAMP. It depends on what we mean by in New Orleans.

That is the issue. The New Orleans office, itself, was shut down for

about 2 months following the hurricane. We were shut down and

we were able to open up space in a retail mall in Metairie 2

months to 3 months later. But what happened is the investigators

that had been in New Orleans went to other offices. They went to

Grand Rapids, they went to Jacksonville, Dallas——

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. I understand the point you are making, but

here is my question: the attorney, Ms. Rosenbaum, testified ‘‘even

workers who did contact DOL WHD and who were able to communicate with a staff person were often dismissed with a shallow, cursory review. Often their complaints were not even recorded by the

agency. Workers simply went away.’’

Now, isn’t that why, in response to my staff’s document request

in which they requested the total number of complaints pursued

and not pursued, you did not submit the total number of cases not

pursued by the DOL?

And at this point I want to enter in the record an e-mail sent

from a congressional liaison to the Department of Labor, Sarah

Cudworth, that states that the Department of Labor does not keep

a record of what it terms non-actionable complaints.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have a response to that?

Mr. DECAMP. Right. When someone comes to the Department

and makes an allegation that does not involve a violation of our

laws or does not on its face appear to involve a violation of our

laws, the case would not necessarily be registered. If it is not registered, we are not going to be tracking that as a complaint. For

example, if someone comes in and says I was paid only $7 an hour,

if that is not a minimum wage situation or another prevailing wage

kind of situation we wouldn’t record it, because it doesn’t on its

face constitute a violation.

I did hear the comments in the first panel about the need for the

Department to go further to investigate, but there is a certain

amount of screening that goes on to weed out complaints that on

their face don’t have any information.

If we have a worker, for example, who calls and says, look, I

didn’t get paid at all for the work I did but I don’t know who my

employer is and I don’t know where he is and I don’t know where

I did the work, if there is nothing that we can go on for an investigation we wouldn’t have registered that complaint.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to complete my questions in this first

round and ask you why can’t you submit the total number of cases

that weren’t pursued? I mean, let me give you an example. I have

a District office. It handles 10,000 requests for services a year. We

have 14 employees in the Cleveland area. We track every call that

comes in, and we give it a number. Then I can go into any one of

those cases like that and know what action was taken or wasn’t

taken. I am asking you why could you not submit the total number

of cases not pursued by the DOL?

Mr. DECAMP. Because they are not cases in terms of how the Department keeps track of the information. We have a data base that

records complaints that have been registered, and when complaints

have not been made, if they haven’t risen to a level of a complaint

to the point where it would be registered in our computer, then we

can’t track that, so we wouldn’t have the record.

Mr. KUCINICH. And I am told that in a FOIA the Department of

Labor would not release information on what their process was related to targeted investigation, because this would violate law enforcement confidentiality.

Mr. DECAMP. Correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. And that the drop in cases resolved from 70 to 44

was the Department of Labor’s answer to a FOIA for the New Orleans metro area, not just——

Mr. DECAMP. The FOIA request did not request the metro area.

That was part of the issue, was that the FOIA request talked about

in New Orleans, and the answer was within the city of New Orleans.

Mr. KUCINICH. So when does something become a case?

Mr. DECAMP. When it is registered in our data base.

Mr. KUCINICH. And could people conceivably call you and staff

just says, well, this doesn’t even merit being a case?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes. If the facts don’t indicate, you know, any kind

of likelihood of a violation of laws that we can deal with, either because substantively there is no violation or we don’t have coverage

of the issue—I mean, it is important to keep in mind that about

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half of the work that day laborers perform, according to a UCLA

study from 2006, is not covered by the Federal wage and hour laws

because the employers are too small to be covered if they don’t

have $500,000 in annual volume, annual business volume.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am going to ask for the Freedom of Information

response to be put in the record. Without objection.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. DeCamp, I want to pick up on the same line, because I think on this, this is a good example of the kind of bipartisan work that we need to do here.

I am sure you would agree that if a 9–1–1 call comes in and

someone says, well, you know, that is not actually an emergency,

there is still a record of it?

Mr. DECAMP. I am not familiar with 9–1–1 practices, but I am

not going to dispute that.

Mr. ISSA. You would say that there should be, wouldn’t you?

Mr. DECAMP. I don’t know.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Do your employees log their time and tell you

what they are doing all day so that you can evaluate whether or

not they are scurrying off, to use a technical term? [Laughter.]

Mr. DECAMP. We use a different technical term.

Mr. ISSA. We are both Clevelanders, so this is a technical term

we are used to.

Mr. KUCINICH. We understand those technical terms.

Mr. DECAMP. Investigators do record their time.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So they record their time, so they tell you effectively, in some at least anecdotal way, the volume of calls that they

are turning away, don’t they?

Mr. DECAMP. No.

Mr. ISSA. Well, let me ask it another way. Would it be too much

trouble for them to, in fact, document those requests which do not

rise to the level of your office’s responsibility or authority?

Mr. DECAMP. It depends on what we are talking about. For example, we get a lot of questions where somebody will call in, possibly a worker, possibly with a wage hour issue, possibly not, just

asking questions. What is the minimum wage this year, or that

kind of question. I don’t think we document those calls. So it is

hard to find, you know, the line as to when it becomes a case, but

where we have facts that would indicate a likelihood of a violation,

that is when that is recorded.

Mr. ISSA. Well, this is the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. DECAMP. Right.

Mr. ISSA. So, looking at the other half of our hat for a moment,

because sometimes oversight is of absolutely no value if we don’t

make changes substantively, would you please, on behalf of this

committee’s request, come back to us with a basic assessment, if

you can’t give it today, of what would it take to maintain a data

base?

I will put it in perspective. Mr. Kucinich and I do handle 10,000

inquiries. Now, to be honest, both of us receive I would say almost

the gaylords, if you know what that is, filled with faxes and little

post cards that have particular issues on them, and we will receive

hundreds or even thousands on a particular issue. They are all

identical. It is important, it is critical for us, in order to make our

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decisions, to know how many people wanted us to add guns, take

away guns, save lives, not save lives, believe in the death penalty,

whatever it is, and every office in some way, shape, or form tasks

their people to provide them with basic data reports, not the individual names of somebody who calls and says how much is the

minimum wage and you say it is $8.50. You don’t have to get the

name, address, and phone number. You answered the question and

you data base it.

How hard would it be to be able to give us that kind of information if you can’t give it to us today? And do you believe today that

it is reasonable that, in fact, you maintain assessments, not only

for your management, but for places like this, we can get some idea

of why they are increasing your budget or your budget request is

$16.7 million more. And what percentage increase is that, if I can

ask?

Mr. DECAMP. The percentage? I don’t know the percentage. It is from $165 million to about $182 million.

Mr. ISSA. Well, 10-plus percent increase in 1 year.

Mr. DECAMP. Approximately. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Would you give a 10-plus percent increase without

knowing why, if you were sitting on this side of the dias?

Mr. DECAMP. What I would submit is that what we are trying

to do is carry out our enforcement mission. I would submit that the

kind of information that you are talking about doesn’t allow us to

do that.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that, but we have to know where the 33

people are that are so busy taking a huge amount of calls that you

say aren’t worth logging or us knowing what they are about because they are not enforceable.

If you could see it from our standpoint, you haven’t justified what

your people are doing in light of the statistics. And, by the way,

I am as empathetic as any Member would be that conditions were

horrific, that your people were under a stress load, that they were

getting a lot of calls, and that every factor that both you have said

and the previous panel said existed. From our standpoint, sitting

here today, looking to the future, this is not the last time a hurricane is going to hit in the south. It certainly is not the last time

you are going to have a flood of illegal workers who are being

abused by opportunistic day labor contractors.

My time is expiring, but I want to give you a fair chance, tell us

how the mistakes that clearly were made—you didn’t come here to

say they weren’t made—and the opportunism that went on, not

just because of the hurricane but because of how we handled the

aftermath, how your office can tell us or give us an assurance that

if a hurricane hit tomorrow that we wouldn’t simply have a do-over

of the exact same set of mistakes.

Mr. DECAMP. We certainly did learn a number of lessons from

the hurricane experience, and I think that the most important that

we learned was that when this kind of disaster happens it can be

a magnet for employers that are less likely to comply with the law

and a magnet for day labor. Day labor, in particular, poses an extreme enforcement challenge for us, because enforcement tends to

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persed, and you are dealing with a lot of workers who will not complain to us. It makes it very difficult for us to do our job.

We have done a lot of things to try to overcome those challenges,

including outreach, including working with community groups, religious groups, churches—anybody who will help us get the message

out to the workers that they should be willing to talk with us.

In addition, we have learned of the importance of very early on

evaluating, when we have a Government contract going on, and

getting up the chain as far as we can as quickly as we can to identify the prime contractors and first-tier contractors, who are much

more likely to be solvent, they are going to have cash, they are

going to be able to make these wage payments, whereas a lot of the

more fly by-night operations we see at lower tiers in the contracting chain don’t have any cash and are not prepared to pay the

workers, even though they are obligated to, even if the money on

the contract hasn’t flowed to them yet.

Mr. ISSA. My times has expired. I just want to followup with one

thing that you could answer.

Mr. KUCINICH. Without objection, the gentleman is granted another 3 minutes.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

If you don’t have the information to add, I would appreciate a followup in writing.

First of all, what is your statute of limitations typically on these

violations?

Mr. DECAMP. For Fair Labor Standards Act it is 2 years or 3

years for a willful violation.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So, knowing that it is 3 years for willful, are you

still pursuing willful violations today? If so, how many from the

post-Katrina period?

Mr. DECAMP. Let’s see. We have over 430 hurricane-related cases

that we have opened. We have closed approximately something

north of 250 of those cases, so that leaves somewhere between 100

and 200 hurricane-related cases—and that includes New Orleans

and the Gulf Coast more broadly—that are still underway.

Mr. ISSA. And do you have the resources today to ensure that the

statute not end prior to your completing your investigations today?

Are people going to get away with this simply because you can’t get

to them?

Mr. DECAMP. It is important to remember that there was a lot

of work that continued long after the hurricane happened, and so

there is still hurricane recovery work going on now. That work is

not subject to the statute tolling in the near future. We have certainly asked for more resources. I don’t believe we have enough resources, and the President’s budget request since 2004 has actually

asked for more money than we have received each year since then.

We are significantly under-funded in 2007. The continuing resolution really hurt our hiring efforts, frankly, and made it difficult to

replace even retiring staff. We need more resources, and we have

asked for them in the pending budget request.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Last question. I thank the chairman for his indulgence.

The $500,000 level, although we can all appreciate that is a relatively small business, if businesses go in and out of business on

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a monthly, twice a year, whatever, basis, or if they set up multiple

entities in order to essentially never get big enough to be kept, do

you have or should this committee author legislation to give you

authority to reach down for willful violations for those who may

have attempted to evade the system even if they are below

$500,000?

Mr. DECAMP. I would argue that we already have that authority.

First of all, it is important to remember that on the Federal contracting side of things, Service Contract Act and Davis-Bacon Act,

we don’t have those kind of requirements. If you are a contractor

and you have a covered contract, it doesn’t matter what your dollar

volume is, you are going to be covered and you are going to be obligated to pay the prevailing wages.

On the FLSA side, if we can show that an employer has been,

you know, manipulating corporate forms to get in and out of coverage and basically stay under the radar of $500,000 but is actually

doing much more and it is a continuation of the same business, we

could pursue theories of piercing the corporate veil and combining

those entities. So I think that authority already exists.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that.

The only reason I asked that one, Mr. Chairman, is that I had

earlier heard that, in not taking so much data on some of these

complaints called in, that some of them were by people who, in

fact, worked for small companies that may not have been covered,

so that is a concern that you could have people calling in and their

company was a day laborer, but, in fact, if the authority exists to

go after them, then knowing the size and scope of these calls that

are being turned away may, in fact, be critical to the committee.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well thank you, Mr. Issa. If I may respond before

we go to Ms. Watson here, one of the people who testified earlier

said that ‘‘even workers who did contact DOL WHD and were able

to communicate with a staff person were often dismissed with a

shallow, cursory review. Often their consumer polices were not

even recorded by the Agency. The workers simply went away,’’

which goes to the question that you are raising about perhaps the

status of the day labor company, which is, you know, who knows

if there is ever any chance for accountability.

As we are hearing this testimony, see, the one thing about some

of us who are in the Congress is we take this case work approach

to things, so we really understand this. My career started 40 years

ago. I got elected 38 years ago. I still have the records from 38

years ago of each and every call that came into my city council office and the disposition of it. I had a tickler file and I just would

see if it was taken care of or not. So, you know, this is 2007. Hello?

And you are visited by—granted, and I think everyone understands

here that is must be extraordinary to have to take on these responsibilities. But you know what? A 10-percent increase in the budget,

$185 million, come on. I mean, you know, we need a little bit more.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for having this

particular hearing. I am sorry I wasn’t here when it started, because I have been highly concerned about New Orleans and its

really benign neglect. During the midst of the crisis there were

photo ops. I remember the President coming down and framed by

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the large Catholic church saying, whatever it takes, as much as it

takes, we will see that flows into New Orleans. I am quite stressed.

We have gone down twice. The feedback to me is that some of the

areas in the great 9th, the houses are still standing. They have not

been repaired or taken down and people have left and there is unemployment. The crime rate is up, and so on.

The impact of that particular hurricane was just shocking, and

I think the impact will continue, so I know people are dysfunctional

and traumatized by the experience they went through, and so I am

really pleased that we are trying to followup to see where we can

make corrections along the way.

If we are to be ready—and I constantly hear that it is all about

Homeland Security—well, first test we really weren’t ready to secure our own land. So the purpose of my questions will be to try

to followup and see what went wrong and what do we need to correct, and is there too much bureaucracy. Are the current ordinances, laws, rules not clear enough? Can we move fast enough to

be able to save lives and property?

So it is my understanding that the New Orleans District Office

staff—and that would be, I guess, your staff—lived in the community that was heavily damaged; is that correct?

Mr. DECAMP. That is. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. Great. So how many members of this staff had

their homes damaged or destroyed by the hurricane? Do you have

any idea?

Mr. DECAMP. I believe that in the New Orleans District Office

proper it was all of them.

Ms. WATSON. All of them?

Mr. DECAMP. They were all displaced.

Ms. WATSON. And all of them were at a hardship, and I know

that several of us attempted to say that the repair, rebuilding, the

removal of the destroyed homes should be done by local people who

lived in the area, and we hear tell that crews were brought in from

other countries below the border. I think Halliburton was in on

some of that. I just think that we have really lost trust with the

people that we are supposed to help.

I know in that area, and as you said almost all of them had their

homes destroyed by the hurricane, and many of the staff members

have not returned home. Now, despite this hardship, I understand

that no one was sent to help the staff do the job that they needed

to do for 3 months. Am I tracking accurately?

Mr. DECAMP. Well, two issues. First, I would want to note that

all of the people who were displaced from New Orleans from our

office, as well as from Biloxi, MS, have come back and were back

with the agency, so I want to commend them and note that for the

record.

The second point is that a lot of help went to the New Orleans

and Gulf Coast regions to assist the offices getting back on their

feet. Almost immediately, as soon as we had office space we had

additional staff from around the country that we put into the region, including Spanish-speaking individuals, because that language capacity was lacking on our staff in the region. It wasn’t necessary before the hurricane because the demographics——

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Ms. WATSON. Did it take over a year to get the Spanish-speaking

staff in place?

Mr. DECAMP. No, no. What happened a year after was the hiring

of employees in the New Orleans office who were Spanish-speaking, but we were bringing Spanish-speaking people from other offices within the agency almost immediately, as soon as we had office space.

It is important to note that because a lot of the work that was

going on in the region was Government contracting work, and

these are the most complex cases, it doesn’t do a lot of good to put

a brand new investigator into the mix and expect them to be able

to handle those cases. Ordinarily we need investigators who have

been experienced for 2 or 3 years and have gone through a second

round of training to be able to handle those cases, so what we were

mainly doing was bringing in experienced investigators from

around the country, as well as experienced managers from around

the country, to help in New Orleans and in the rest of the Gulf

Coast because the cases were that complex.

Ms. WATSON. What would you suggest? I can understand the

hardships. I represent Los Angeles, and we have a group called LA/

LA—Louisiana/L.A. Many of the people from the great 9th came to

Los Angeles, and we helped them there. We raised money. We

housed them. We obtained clothing for them. And so I can understand what you are up against.

What I am having difficulty with understanding is that a lot of

the labor laws were suspended, Davis-Bacon Act and so on. I understand you need experienced people, but I can’t understand almost 2 years now what has happened in the second year and why

can’t we then have a plan for operating and addressing and tracking complaints and the reports and all. Why are we still laboring

under the confusion? Can you bring me up to date? What is the

problem?

Mr. DECAMP. Certainly. Thank you for the question. We have actually hired additional investigators in New Orleans on a permanent basis, as well as in Mississippi. We have brought in additional

management staff. Currently we have postings out to hire additional people. We are looking, for example, to bring in on a longterm detail basis a senior investigator and a team leader into New

Orleans.

We recognize that what is going on is there is actually a much

shrunken work force in New Orleans, but it has been a demographic shift. Right now the city is anywhere from 40 to 60 percent

below its pre-hurricane population level, so the work force is much

smaller.

Ms. WATSON. They are all in Los Angeles.

Mr. DECAMP. And Texas and a number of places, certainly. And

so long term we don’t think that there is going to be a need for a

very large staff in New Orleans, so that is part of why we are trying to avoid over-staffing that office, in effect. We want to staff it

now with a larger work force than it had before the hurricane, but

not overly so. We think that the bulk of the problem will be in the

next 2 to 5 years as this contracting and rebuilding scenario works

its way through the system, and we think that it is kind of a temporary bubble now over the next 2 to 5 years, a significant bubble

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in terms of violations and in terms of workload in the Gulf Coast

and in New Orleans, in particular. But that is why we are trying

to address it without hiring permanent employees in New Orleans

more so than the workload on a long-term basis will justify. We are

trying to be more flexible, in other words, in how we staff the situation.

Ms. WATSON. You wouldn’t consider training and retraining

those people who lost property, who moved away, and we are pushing this come home, return home? You wouldn’t consider wanting

to train them and hire them permanently to give them work in

their own home community and train them the way they should be

trained so they can assist in rebuilding the devastated communities? Has that ever come up as a way to increase the number of

employees that you are going to need?

I am certain that we are going to have another hurricane, and

particularly with the effect of global warming. It is going to happen

again. How can we be ready? And how can we compensate the people who lost so much, lost their jobs, probably never be able to go

back to those jobs, but maybe a work force that could be trained

and to fill those slots, rather than looking for experienced people

that would have to leave their current employment and come back

to an area that could be devastated in the next few weeks?

Mr. DECAMP. Well, that has actually been part of the challenge

for the agency is finding people willing to work in New Orleans.

That has been a challenge. We have posted job positions, and not

necessarily—people who have jobs with wage hour in other parts

of the country don’t necessarily want to leave where they are and

come to New Orleans. So to the extent we have positions available

in New Orleans, the local work force, subject to all the rules that

go with hiring Government employees, would certainly seem to be

an option.

Ms. WATSON. It seems to me that the bureaucracy is one of the

obstacles to rebuilding, and I would think for the particular needs

of this Gulf Coast area that we would change some of the regulations, some of the policies.

They were talking about a data base when I came in. If we had

an accurate data base and we could seek out the people who lived

in the area who could be potential trainees and employees, I think

that might be one way. Find people who live there and might want

to return.

As you said, there are people living elsewhere, and they are

doing much better living elsewhere than they would living at home,

but I think there is something deep inside of us where we want to

go home.

I don’t know, Mr. Chairman, if that data base you were talking

about were a list of the people who needed help and are other

places within the country, but I think an effort could be made on

the part of the Department to locate these people and bring them

in for training. I mean, you can train them exactly the way you

need to so they can be there to face up and have the skills they

need to face the next hurricane. There will be another.

This is a suggestion and recommendation. I am sure I am just

following in the tracks of our other Members. We want to be helpful, and not only to the Department but to the victims of that terVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:36 Sep 28, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00166 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\51702.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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rible hurricane. And we are all in a way victims. So I would suggest that we look at the rules, regulations, procedures that we had

before, loosen them up, target people who lost their jobs, lost their

homes, lost their incomes, and see if we can reach out to them,

bring them back, train them the way they need to be trained.

We learned a lot, I hope, since then, but I would never want to

see another lame response that happened. You know, we are rushing around the world trying to help others and we can’t even rebuild one of our historical cities. There is something wrong with

that picture.

So my suggestion is that, taking the questions that we are raising here, the concerns that we have here—I am connected by family to New Orleans, so I have a sensitivity about what is going on

there—I would like to see our famous historical, unique city restored and the people having the option to come back and live a

better life. That is just a word to you.

Maybe we ought to put something in writing to the Department.

Thank you so much for the time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Listen, your presence here is imperative. I just

want to say that, in line with increasing communication between

this subcommittee and your division, I am going to ask staff of the

majority and minority to work together in drafting a letter as a followup that would have the following elements: Taking from the

concerns that were expressed by the previous panel, specifically the

recommendations that were made, perhaps some of which you have

already addressed, perhaps some of which you haven’t, but I want

to make sure that we take the letters, read over the letters from

those that testified, look at the recommendations, incorporate them

in a bipartisan letter to Mr. DeCamp, and then we will await your

response as a way of continuing to engage here.

The importance of having communication between us cannot be

stressed strongly enough. For example, one of the things I want to

enter into the record, without objection, is a letter from a Loyola

Law Clinic intern who referred Jeffrey Steele’s case to the Department of Labor, and I have an e-mail dated Thursday, February 22,

2007, where Vanessa Spinazolla, a student practitioner with Loyola

Law Clinic’s Workplace Justice Project wrote an e-mail to Barbara

Hicks that pretty much outlines failure of the Department to act

on this specific complaint. Without objection, that will go into the

record.

You will be given a chance to respond to that, as well.

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Mr. KUCINICH. I think that there is an issue here of whether the

New Orleans staff could handle the case load after the hurricane.

Were you able to or not? Was that an area that you just couldn’t

do it?

Mr. DECAMP. The issue was that we didn’t try to handle New Orleans with New Orleans staff, alone. We brought all the

resources——

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. So you had staff. So here is my question.

Take Mr. Steele’s case, for example. Why hasn’t it been concluded?

I mean, he filed his claim with you in September 2005. It is going

to be a year now. I am sure he is not the only one. What is going

on?

Mr. DECAMP. First of all, I am not sure that he said 2005. I

think he may have said 2006.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Let’s say he said 2006. What is going on?

Mr. DECAMP. The point is there is a pending case and we can’t

talk about, for enforcement reasons, the case that——

Mr. KUCINICH. Fine, but generally speaking in terms of these

cases, isn’t time of the essence?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes, time is of the essence. And, more generally,

what happens in some of these cases is that we get a complaint or

we hear information involving one employee, and we end up looking at the employer more broadly because we think that the issues

may affect not just that employee but other employees and the

same employer.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is 5 months a long period of time to assign a case

manager to a case?

Mr. DECAMP. Not necessarily.

Mr. KUCINICH. Really?

Mr. DECAMP. Depends on the nature of the case, and, again, in

that case——

Mr. KUCINICH. Really?

Mr. DECAMP. Depends on the case. Depends on the office. Depends on what is going on in the office.

Mr. KUCINICH. You know, that is interesting.

Let me ask you this. Staff raises the question. That is why there

are people whispering in my ears, by the way. What would cause

this kind of a delay?

Mr. DECAMP. Again, I can’t comment on Mr.——

Mr. KUCINICH. I am not asking you about a specific case. Let’s

speak generally.

Mr. DECAMP. Speaking generally——

Mr. KUCINICH. Generally, what would cause a delay of 5 months?

Mr. DECAMP. If, for example, we are already looking at that employer, we are already investigating that employer in a case that

might encompass that employee already, that employee’s individual

complaint might not get a high priority in terms of being assigned

because those rights are already in play, they are already being investigated.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you something. I know no one here

needs to be reminded that you are under oath. I won’t do that. But

I will ask you: have you ever been told not to pursue a case at any

time in any way whatsoever by any superior?

Mr. DECAMP. Absolutely no.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Passantino.

Mr. PASSANTINO. No.

Mr. KUCINICH. Dr. Carlson.

Mr. CARLSON. Absolutely not.

Mr. KUCINICH. I know you don’t want to talk about an individual

case, and I will respect that, but if someone is not assigned to a

case it is not a case; is that right?

Mr. DECAMP. If there is a possible pending investigation we are

not going to discuss it.

Mr. KUCINICH. If someone is not assigned to a case, is it a case?

Just like, you know, you don’t keep records of certain things

because——

Mr. DECAMP. If a complaint has been registered, then there is a

pending case, and if it hasn’t been assigned to an investigator yet,

there is still a pending case and we can’t talk about it.

Mr. KUCINICH. If you can’t talk about a pending case——

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. Is a case a pending case if you didn’t

even begin an investigation?

Mr. DECAMP. If a complaint has been registered, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Now, I understand that you believe that an

impediment to workers complaining to the DOL is the fact they

don’t trust you as a Government agency because they fear deportation; is that true?

Mr. DECAMP. For undocumented workers, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. And did you think about approaching community

organizations that did establish trust with the workers in order to

gain their trust?

Mr. DECAMP. Absolutely. We did extensive outreach. In fact, I

would like to submit for the record, with your permission, a document that outlines in great detail all of the efforts we had——

Mr. KUCINICH. Without objection, we would like to have it.

Would you like to describe it just a little bit?

Mr. DECAMP. Certainly. It is 10 pages.

Mr. KUCINICH. Just give me a caption.

Mr. DECAMP. Sure. We talked about the outreach that we had

with particular churches, with particular community organizations.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you give me any names?

Mr. DECAMP. Sure. For example, we worked with the Hispanic

Apostolate, the Archdiocese of New Orleans. We worked with the

Lantern Light Ministry in New Orleans. We worked with the

Workplace Justice Clinic of Loyola University School of Law; Our

Lady of Fatima Church in Biloxi, MS; the Good News Camp in

New Orleans; Mexican consulates in Atlanta and Houston; Katrina

Aid Today; McDonald’s; FEMA; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the

Small Business Administration, and many others that are discussed at length in the document.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you work with the Loyola Law Clinic?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you work with Luz Molina?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. I wondered about that. We haven’t had a chance

to go back over the list since you are just submitting this for the

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record, but I just wanted to share something with you, and maybe

you could respond.

My staff followed up with Luz Molina about the collaborative relationship with her, and we asked her to submit her recollection of

the relationship that she had in writing. I have a statement here

and we will enter it into the record, but I wanted to read for our

purposes an excerpt from it.

Here is what it says: ‘‘After the initial efforts by the Department

of Labor reach out to the WPJP—’’ that is the Workplace Justice

Project—‘‘after these efforts were essentially exhausted, there was

no further meaningful collaboration. I would have truly appreciated

the opportunity to develop a strong relationship with the Department of Labor. Such relationships would have been a good way to

finally reach out to the community of workers long term and thus

maintain a relationship with the community of clients most conducive to effectively addressing their claims. However, the DOL, especially at the national level, offered no such opportunity, and to my

knowledge has taken no steps to develop and keep these relationships open long term.

‘‘More than anything else, we would have welcomed a strong

statement from DOL to the effect that ‘we want to meet with your

clients and take on their cases.’ At a time when labor enforcement

resources were and still are nearly nonexistent, such a gesture

would have gone a long way to establish their presence as an enforcement agency in the area. The absence of such opportunities

was a big disappointment.’’

Would you say that this is an exception rather than the rule in

terms of your relationships?

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Mr. DECAMP. It is certainly my hope that is an exception and in

my experience that is an exception.

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you be willing to find a way to determine

how it was that someone could have this kind of an assessment

and perhaps learn to see if there is anything that could be done

to——

Mr. DECAMP. I would be happy to meet with Ms. Molina at her

convenience.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Great.

Let’s see. I just have one other area I want to cover. This is for

Dr. Carlson. Thanks for being here. Can you comment on what you

have done to investigate the case of Matt Redd?

Mr. CARLSON. Yes, I can, and thank you for the opportunity to

be here.

I probably should draw a distinction before I comment on that,

that my office is separate and apart from Mr. DeCamp’s, and I

have no specific investigative authority other than reviewing an application which is filed with us on its merits.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is there an investigation going on?

Mr. CARLSON. I have no investigative authority.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. DeCamp.

Mr. DECAMP. The Wage and Hour Division, under the statute,

under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 214(c)(14) does

not have authority. The statute assigns investigative authority

under the H2-B program to the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. KUCINICH. So Homeland Security is the one that would be

able to answer that; is that right? Do you know, though, if there

has been any progress at all?

Mr. DECAMP. You would have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. KUCINICH. So you are saying this is really outside your jurisdiction; is that right?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. CARLSON. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you know anything about it? Can you enlighten us? Could you share with us anything? Do you know anything about the case of Matt Redd?

Mr. CARLSON. I can tell you that we looked in our data base for

that name and found no applications that were filed specifically in

his name.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, wasn’t there something about wage theft involved? Do you look into cases involving wage theft?

Mr. DECAMP. Well, with wage theft, again, it is important to understand that is an imprecise term that does not necessarily spell

out a violation of any of our laws. It may include a violation of

somebody’s rights, but not necessarily rights that are within the jurisdiction of the Wage and Hour Division if our statutes don’t apply

or if——

Mr. KUCINICH. But isn’t the Fair Labor Standards Act, if I may,

Mr. DeCamp, you have jurisdiction over Fair Labor Standards Act?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Weren’t you notified that Mr. Redd was in violation of Fair Labor Standards Act, at least since February 15, 2007?

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Mr. DECAMP. To my knowledge we have not received any information on——

Mr. KUCINICH. You have not received any notification of that?

Mr. DECAMP. To my knowledge.

Mr. KUCINICH. You don’t have any awareness of that at all? Is

that what you are telling this subcommittee?

Mr. DECAMP. My understanding is we do not have any active

case involving Mr. Redd.

Mr. KUCINICH. So——

Mr. DECAMP. It is important to keep in mind that Mr. Redd, at

least according to the media reports—and we are certainly aware

of what has been reported publicly—is what would be called a labor

contractor rather than an employer, at least by all of the information that we have seen. We see this in the H1-B context, as well.

We also see it in the agriculture context. These are people who are

not necessarily employing people, but they are funneling people

from other countries and, you know, connecting them with employers in the country. Our laws don’t necessarily apply to them in

terms of the Wage and Hour Division’s laws, but there may be laws

that do apply, including the H2-B statute that is outside our jurisdiction under the statute.

Mr. KUCINICH. What about, you know, Mr. Redd? Let’s talk about

his business, LA Labor, LLC. This is the business that is the formal name of the employer owned by Matt Redd, so in the interest

of absolute clarity what about LA Labor, LLC? Are we talking

about any notice of a violation of Fair Labor Standards Act?

Mr. DECAMP. I don’t believe that we have checked our records for

that entity. We checked for Matthew Redd.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you aware of this protest in front of the Department of Labor to try to get someone to begin an investigation

of this employer?

Mr. DECAMP. I am not, other than what has been said today.

Mr. KUCINICH. And you said that no one has ever told you don’t

investigate anyone or don’t look at this?

Mr. DECAMP. That is correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. Because you don’t work that way?

Mr. DECAMP. That is correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. We have, you know, will. Have you been presented with information about LA Labor, LLC, which Mr. Redd apparently runs? Are you aware of it? Has it ever been brought to

your attention in any official capacity?

Mr. DECAMP. Only listening to your remarks in the past few

minutes here.

Mr. KUCINICH. Really?

Mr. DECAMP. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. But didn’t you say something that you heard

some news accounts, you know? I would just like to enter into the

record, you know, like I can’t tell you that I am aware of everything that is on the media about what is going on in Congress because, like my dear colleague here, it is quite possible you could

hear a report a few days later relating to some action that you

weren’t aware of, so I will take it that is possible, but there was

a report on Channel 7, KPLC, out of—what city is that?

STAFF. New Orleans.

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Mr. KUCINICH [continuing]. New Orleans by Teresa Schmitt,

headlined, ‘‘Mexican Workers Protest Company.’’ Katrina survivors

and immigrant workers unite to arrest slave owner. This is what

it says in this article. What I would like to do is submit this whole

package and the interpretation, without objection, to the record.

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Mr. KUCINICH. This is the first time you have heard of this?

Mr. DECAMP. I have heard of Matthew Redd before, but not the

protest or not the name of——

Mr. KUCINICH. But the case, have you heard about this case,

though? Do you know about the case?

Mr. DECAMP. I don’t know what case you are talking about, sir.

Are you talking about an investigation of——

Mr. KUCINICH. An investigation of someone willfully misrepresenting a business and labor certification for guest workers, someone who is said to have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. Has

anybody ever said anything? Do you have any complaint about

this?

Mr. DECAMP. All that I have heard about with Matthew Redd or

any business that he owns, as far as I know, would be arguable violations of the H2-B worker program, which would be outside the jurisdiction of our Department. However, we do enforce all of the

other laws that apply to the H2-B workers under the Fair Labor

Standards Act.

Mr. KUCINICH. Does it concern you to know that there was a protest in front of the office in New Orleans relative to what has been

charged as to be lack of enforcement in this case?

Mr. DECAMP. I wouldn’t say that would concern or not concern

me. It is information. People have the right to——

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you act on such information? Do you hear

that? I mean, I am chairman of this Domestic Policy Subcommittee.

I am calling this to your attention right now. Are you willing to investigate this case relating to LA Labor, LLC, and Mr. Redd, who

apparently, and I use the word apparently, allegedly, has violated

the Fair Labor Standards Act and certain other provisions of labor

law? Will you look into it?

Mr. DECAMP. I will certainly consider it and pass the information

on to the field managers who can make a better decision about——

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like you to report back. Listen, if there

is not a case there is not a case, and if there is not a case after

your careful determination, then I have to accept that. But if there

is a case and it has been called to your attention, then you have

to accept that. So let’s follow this line, please.

Mr. DECAMP. And, Mr. Chairman, I would note that we frequently initiate cases based on media reports across the wide range

of our——

Mr. KUCINICH. I get involved in things based on media reports.

I mean, that is the nature of our business here. But I am calling

to your attention a media report that I read. I didn’t see it. I didn’t

experience it, but I read it and I want to make sure that we

present this. We are also going to be, just so you understand, we

are also going to be notifying the Inspector General of this discussion, as well. You know, I think and I believe that you are making

a good faith effort coming in front of this committee. I really believe that. But I also know that there are certain things here that

don’t really jive. My ranking member pointed it out. Just a feel of

this, there is something wrong.

Now, you can have this avalanche of work activity and responsibilities that probably few agencies really have in the way that

you have. But you know what? We just want to make sure that

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nothing falls through the cracks here, and so we are going to be

in touch with the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General

to request an investigation of whether Mr. Reed willfully misrepresented his business and labor certification process, but, in addition

to that, this goes outside of, you know, that is their responsibility.

We are passing this on to you right now. It is a matter of record.

I want to thank my colleague. Do you have any followup at all

before we go to the next panel?

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Chairman, would you yield?

Mr. KUCINICH. I will yield to the gentlelady.

Ms. WATSON. I would hope that, as a result of this hearing, that

we will take a CoDel down and go through the offices after we receive back from your response to the letters that the Chair had

suggested. I would like to have a CoDel—congressional delegation—come down and walk through your offices, address your response, and allow us to ask questions, because there is conflict of

information coming through my ears from back here, and these are

the people who do the investigations for us. They are showing us

information by the second of what they saw on TV, the investigation, and so on.

I am suggesting, Mr. Chairman, that we take a CoDel down an

appropriate amount of time, go through their offices, raise the

question, see if they have addressed some of the procedures that

have really, I think, violated the rights of workers in the labor

process, as a followup.

Mr. KUCINICH. What I will do is I will council with my minority

leader of this committee, and we will get together and have a meeting on this. I am certainly responsive to that request.

Ms. WATSON. We could be hands-on.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think it is a great idea. Just so you know, we

are going to get to know each other a little bit more. I think to

have the support of Mr. Issa here is absolutely critical, so let me

speak to him and see if we can proceed. I would like you to be involved in intelligence, as well, because of your initiative here.

I want to go back to this Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General. Will the DOL’s Office of the Inspector General investigate whether Mr. Redd willfully misrepresented his business

in the labor certification process?

Mr. DECAMP. I am not sure whether that is their jurisdiction or

Homeland Security’s IG’s jurisdiction, but——

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you saying you don’t have any jurisdiction?

Mr. DECAMP. We don’t have jurisdiction over fraud in the certification process, yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, according to the semiannual report to the

Congress from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Labor for the 6-month period ending on March 31, 2007,

the Office of the Inspector General describes its work as including

investigations of fraudulent applications filed with the DOL. In

some cases, the Office of the Inspector General conducts joint investigations with ICE. So the Office of the Inspector General does

have the authority to conduct an investigation as to whether or not

there is fraud involved, does it not?

Mr. DECAMP. I have no knowledge one way or the other. I am

not disputing what you are reading there. I simply——

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Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I am going to ask staff to provide you with

a copy of this report for 6-month period ending March 31, 2007.

Let’s include this in the record, without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. I also think it would be helpful to Mr. DeCamp

if you could make a copy of this right now. Can we do that?

Staff. YES. Mr. KUCINICH. Let’s make a copy.

Mr. CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I can speak for the Employment and Training Administration with respect to the semi-annual report from our OIG. Our office routinely participates in fraud

investigations across the broad spectrum of employment-based immigration programs with regard to fraud.

Mr. KUCINICH. If someone misrepresents their business in the

labor certification process for guest workers then, can that person

be debarred from Labor certification for up to 3 years? And would

that come under your jurisdiction?

Mr. CARLSON. My office has no debarment authority. Again, I

would defer to Mr. DeCamp——

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. DeCamp.

Mr. CARLSON [continuing]. About Homeland Security.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. DeCamp.

Mr. DECAMP. The Wage and Hour Division has no enforcement

authority under the H2-B program.

Mr. KUCINICH. So only DHS has that authority?

Mr. DECAMP. That is my understanding.

Mr. KUCINICH. And so you only have the authority to debar employers who sponsor H1-B and H2-B visas; is that right?

Mr. CARLSON. My office can debar H2-A employers.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK, H2-A.

Mr. CARLSON. The agriculture program.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. What about H1-B?

Mr. DECAMP. I believe the Wage and Hour Division would——

Mr. KUCINICH. Wage and Hour can do that, right?

Mr. DECAMP [continuing]. Would proceed debarment of H1-B.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. I have a list of employers who sponsored H1-

B visas. This is a list here which I submit for the record of H1-B

employers who have been debarred.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. It is actually quite a lengthy list.

Mr. DECAMP. We have an active enforcement program.

Mr. KUCINICH. So there is enforcement. This list is on the Department of Labor’s Web site, as you are aware.

Now, doesn’t it make sense that you would have the authority,

and you just said you can debar H2-B.

Mr. DECAMP. H2-A and H1-B, between the two——

Mr. KUCINICH. H1-B. What about H2-B? Doesn’t it make sense

you would have the ability to debar H2-B?

Mr. DECAMP. It is the statute. The statute is what it is. It is for

Congress to decide what the statute is. We enforce——

Mr. KUCINICH. Does that make sense to you?

Mr. DECAMP. There are a lot of statutes that don’t necessarily

make sense. We do our best.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you familiar with the Department of Labor

proposed rule for post-adjudication audits of H2-B petitions in all

occupations other than excepted occupations in the United States,

70 Federal Register, 3393–205?

Mr. CARLSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. And have you ever followed up on these proposed

regulations?

Mr. CARLSON. My office issued a notice of proposed rulemaking

that you reference there. We received extensive comments, many in

opposition to the proposed rulemaking, which, as you all probably

know, included a proposed debarment authority in H2-B. We are

still in the process of analyzing those with our counsel’s office to

see whether we can go forward with our final——

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it your understanding that the statute permits

the Secretary of Homeland Security to delegate administrative penalties to the Secretary of Labor with the agreement of the Secretary of Labor to undertake this authority?

Mr. CARLSON. That is my understanding.

Mr. KUCINICH. And if the DHS can delegate this authority to

you, and you are in the best position to assess employer violations,

then have you approached the DHS to delegate this authority to

you, Mr. DeCamp?

Mr. DECAMP. My understanding is there have been discussions

about that.

Mr. KUCINICH. And if I understand correctly, your proposed regulations in 2005 to have greater authority over H2-B visas in 2005

is rendered moot after the passage of Save our Small and Seasonal

Businesses Act. This new act gave the DHS the ability to delegate

authority to you. You say you are following up. You know that the

state of non-agricultural guest workers is rife with labor exploitation and fraud, so are you following that up with that in mind?

Mr. DECAMP. My understanding, as I said, is that there have

been discussions that did not result in a delegation of authority

from——

Mr. KUCINICH. Say that again.

Mr. DECAMP. My understanding is that there have been discussions, but that those discussions did not result in a delegation of

authority from Homeland Security to Labor on the H2-B enforcement.

Mr. KUCINICH. So what’s the enforcement then?

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Mr. DECAMP. That is with Homeland Security.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you still having discussions now? Are there

serious discussions about you assuming the authority, or are you

just not interested in that, you are letting them drop? What is it?

Mr. DECAMP. My understanding is that there were discussions

that did not result in a delegation of authority.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Well, we can followup on that.

Honorable Congressman, do you want to ask any more questions? I am done.

Ms. WATSON. You are going to followup on the last point?

Mr. KUCINICH. Yes.

Ms. WATSON. OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. I want to thank each of you for being here.

We could not have held this hearing without your participation,

and we are going to need your help in order to keep trying to find

a way to make this system work. And it is in that spirit we are

going to proceed here, and the communications with this committee

and with you will be in the spirit of trying to find a way to make

this work better. These hearings are not gotcha hearings, but wherever there is a loose string or a loose matter such as the LA Labor,

LLC, we want to find out what is going on there.

Again, I trust your integrity. We need your cooperation. Thank

you.

We will go to the next panel.

Mr. DECAMP. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. DeCamp, I just want you to know this is

going on the record, so thank you.

We are momentarily going to move to the third panel.

While we are getting ready, I want to thank the members of the

third panel for hanging in here for 21⁄2 hours. As you see, this subcommittee takes these things very seriously. We go into them in

depth because the people of New Orleans and people of this country deserve no less.

I would like to begin by making an introduction of both of the

panelists.

Tracie Washington is founder and director of the Louisiana Justice Institute. This Institute was founded in April 2007 as a nonprofit public interest legal advocacy group focusing on the Gulf

Coast. A native of New Orleans, Ms. Washington owned her own

civil legal practice focusing on employment, labor, and education

issues for 16 years before Hurricane Katrina forced Ms. Washington to evacuate with her son to Texas.

Ms. Washington returned to New Orleans in December 2005, and

she now represents Katrina survivors in a wide spectrum of cases,

from education to housing to voter rights.

Welcome.

Ms. WASHINGTON. Thank you.

Mr. KUCINICH. Also Ms. Catherine Ruckelshaus is a litigation director at the National Employment Law Project in New York City.

Her primary areas of expertise on behalf of lower-wage workers are

the labor and employment rights of contingent workers, immigrants, and workfare participants.

Among recent cases, Ms. Ruckelshaus was lead counsel in a landmark case, Lopez v. Silverman, which established for the first time

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that a garment manufacturer was liable for the sweatshop conditions of its subcontractors. It was a very important case.

At this point I would ask both of the panelists to please rise. It

is the custom of our committee and our subcommittee to swear in

witnesses. We would ask you to raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank you. Let the record show that both witnesses answered in the affirmative.

As with the first and second panel, we ask that you give an oral

summary of your testimony and keep the summary under 5 minutes in duration. I want you to bear in mind that your complete

written statement will be included in the hearing record.

Ms. Washington, let’s begin with you. Welcome. We appreciate it.

STATEMENTS OF TRACIE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT AND CEO,

LOUISIANA JUSTICE INSTITUTE; AND CATHERINE RUCKELSHAUS, LITIGATION DIRECTOR, NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT

LAW PROJECT

STATEMENT OF TRACIE WASHINGTON

Ms. WASHINGTON. Thank you so much. I want to thank you for

this opportunity to meet with Congress to discuss the impact of immigrant labor on the ability of African Americans to participate in

the labor market post-Katrina.

You have my statement. I will speak a little bit from this, but

much of what I was about to testify to this afternoon you have

heard, but I want to place particular emphasis on the impact of immigrant labor on African American workers in New Orleans and

what DOL has failed to do and what it could do, first of all, to enhance what was miserable employment opportunity prospects, conditions for African American workers prior to Hurricane Katrina,

and what post-Katrina had been abysmal, often slave-like conditions for immigrant workers.

I decided when I was asked to come and testify to not really talk

from my perspective as an attorney first, but to tell you about some

of what I hear on a day-to-day basis in my practice and what came

in through the NAACP and now through the Louisiana Justice Institute, some of those frustrations.

From the employer perspective, especially on the construction

front, what you hear oftentimes are stories like that of Raymond

Rock, Ray Rock, who owns with a partner a construction company

in New Orleans. Even prior to Hurricane Katrina, Ray is a master

carpenter. He has taught carpentry. He has been doing this type

of work for, you know, decades.

Post Hurricane Katrina, when we had been promised so much

growth and expansion beyond our wildest dreams in New Orleans,

our master construction workers really believed that it was going

to be a renaissance time in New Orleans. But they didn’t find that.

What they found was the inability to really compete for good construction work because the market and prices and what they could

bid and get for jobs—I outline that a little bit here in the paper—

has been driven down so dramatically by immigrant labor, but by

the unwillingness of employers to pay immigrant workers living

wages.

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We see on the side of employees, and I recount the story, a representative story of one of my clients who is a public housing resident, former public housing resident in New Orleans who worked

in the hospitality industry, hotel industry, for over 20 years prior

to Hurricane Katrina.

I think you heard from Saket Soni some of the stories, and Ms.

Price’s story is no different. She came back to the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, thought she could get her job back in

the hotel, was offered her job. But guess what? She wasn’t offered

any place to live. Well, the cost of housing in New Orleans has skyrocketed so much that she couldn’t afford to work, but immigrant

workers were being offered housing—housing with abysmal conditions in many instances, but still housing. So she was displaced,

and in that assessment by immigrant workers.

So we are often asked what is the problem. Is there a conflict?

Is there tension between African American workers and immigrant

workers? What is going on in New Orleans, Tracie? You know,

what has been the effect of the immigrant work force on African

American labor? Well, we can’t sugar-coat it. We can’t say there

has been no effect and sort of live like we are in a la-la world. But

what we don’t want to do, and we have worked really hard as activism advocates to work with our clients and within the community to understand is it is not the fault of immigrant workers that

you cannot get living wage work in the city of New Orleans. We

have more than enough work to go around. The problem is greedy

employers, immoral employers oftentimes, who will not abide by

the laws concerning the payment of wages, the payment of overtime, the payment of prevailing wages, in many cases.

So that factor, unfortunately, drives down the standard of living

for the African American workers. They can’t come home and work

for $5 an hour or risk being told that they are going to make $100

a day only after 30 days to be told, Psych, we are not paying you

anything, which often happens with the immigrant workers. Or my

experience when I first came home and started doing this work,

you know, when payday came for immigrant workers they weren’t

greeted by checks; they were greeted by ICE—Immigrations and

Customs Enforcement. That was your every-two-week pay call.

So what do we do? That is really what I want to focus on. We

know what the problems are. What do we do?

We have to understand that we have to bridge the gap between

black and Latino workers, providing the necessary skills to end divisive struggles over low-quality jobs. We can no longer have companies with open positions and no training systems in place, and

what we most certainly cannot do is fight each other over the

chance to get $5.15 an hour to clean somebody’s toilet. We can fight

with each other to ensure that job pays $15 an hour, but fighting

each other for $5.15 when the employer is getting ridiculously rich

doesn’t make a lot of sense.

We know that the Department of Labor—and you have heard

this, and you heard the responses from the Wage and Hour representatives—they have failed miserably in enforcement. That is

just the bottom line. I don’t want to sugar-coat that either, and nobody should allow that to happen.

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If they need more money, let’s get them some more money. If

they need more investigators, fine, get some more investigators.

But at the end of the day you can’t say that now, some 2 years

after Katrina—you know, it is very difficult for us as advocates to

sit and listen to folks whine about, well, we have been trying to get

this money for a long time. As an attorney who practices labor and

employment law, I know that next year that statute of limitations

is over. These folks are not going to have a chance to do anything.

DOL can also be proactive. It can be proactive in reaching out

to the community with advocacy groups such as LGI, such as

Southern Poverty Law Center, such as the Workers Center, to help

with job reforms in this community, working to improve wages,

benefits, and working conditions in New Orleans.

Let’s be a little creative. If you knew that you didn’t have enough

Spanish-speaking people in the city of New Orleans to do something at the Department of Labor, we have more than enough

Spanish-speaking people. Obviously the Spanish-speaking people

who have problems can come in and speak Spanish. That is just

stupid. I am sorry.

Let’s work on education and training. Over the next few years we

know we are going to see an incredible amount of jobs opening up

in New Orleans for infrastructure and construction as construction

takes off. Sure, we know some of these jobs, many of these jobs are

going to require college education, but most of them will not. We

don’t need to have people fighting at the margins for jobs in the

secondary market when the Department of Labor can be creative

with its funding and work with nonprofit organizations and other

organizations to move people out of these jobs very low at the margins and bring people up and help develop a community. That is

what President Bush said he wanted to do. That is what we are

waiting for.

Finally, one of the things I heard often from the skilled trades

folks that I spoke with about this testimony is they said—and most

of them know me from the community. I was born and raised in

New Orleans—Tracie, we need to do more to have an African

American workers center so we can join together and organize even

among the model that we have had in the immigrant worker community. And DOL can help with that, as well. It may be on the

margins of what they do. It may not be principally what happens

with the Department of Labor, but the Department of Labor, again,

can be creative and assist in those efforts.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Washington follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

Ms. Ruckelshaus.

STATEMENT OF CATHERINE RUCKELSHAUS

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My name is Cathy Ruckelshaus, and I am the litigation director

for the National Employment Law Project. As you mentioned, we

are a national nonprofit and used to be a legal services organization that promotes good jobs for low-income workers.

In the last half of my 20 years of working with low-wage workers

around the country, we have lost a partner in the Department of

Labor. Not too long ago, DOL initiated strategic programs to combat the worst workplace abuses, but in recent years it has stepped

out of the picture when it comes to enforcing basic standards.

At NELP we have had the opportunity to learn about job conditions in industries such as agriculture, construction, and day labor,

garment, meat packing, janitorial, and domestic work. We have

seen sub-minimum wage pay, lack of health and safety protections,

and rampant discrimination.

My testimony today urges that we reinvigorate DOL’s commitment to workers’ rights and that we use this low point to bring it

back.

In New Orleans, a recent and extreme microcosm of what goes

on around the country, firms have used time-honored cost-cutting

tactics that are common around the country. They hide behind subcontractors. They call workers independent contractors and then

look for immigrant workers who are vulnerable to exploitation.

Workers whose rights are being evaded urgently need DOL to

step in. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama there are no State

agencies in charge of fair pay because the States have no State

minimum wage law.

Private attorneys, except for Tracie, often will not or cannot take

low-wage worker cases. The DOL is really their only option. However, while the number of businesses covered by the labor laws has

expanded recently, DOL’s activities have decreased. They only have

788 investigators for the entire country. The number of actions

they have brought has decreased by 36 percent.

More disturbingly, the agency has, in a number of instances,

used these dwindling resources to intervene on the side of employers in ongoing litigation and urging that workers’ sides lose.

It is also becoming harder for workers to report abuses to the Department of Labor due to recent immigration raids sowing fear in

the community, and workers who would like a union to protect

them don’t have one.

The good news is that we can repaint this bleak picture. Any success in moving forward with DOL to improve the response in New

Orleans will reverberate around the country. DOL can make a difference in the wage levels of more than just the workplaces it targets, especially by dedicating attention to a particular region like

New Orleans or a particular job sector.

I will conclude by highlighting some reforms that DOL, with your

urging, could implement across the country. Most of these the

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agency needs only to revive, not create out of old cloth, because it

has already used these strategies successfully in the past.

First—and we have heard this already—target low-wage industries with persistent violations, like the construction, day labor,

and hospitality industries in New Orleans, to start. This would entail tracking violations and conducting preemptive workplace investigations without waiting for workers to complain.

DOL could target violations by employers who seek to hide behind subcontractors or who call their workers independent contractors. DOL could target these employers by keeping data, as we

mentioned earlier, on worker complaints that DOL chooses not to

enforce, as well as data on enforcement efforts and outcomes.

DOL can do this by actively partnering with community groups

who are the eyes and ears of the problems in order to learn of the

worst abuses and assist in enforcement and fact gathering. DOL

should share information with other agencies in DOL, like OSHA,

and it could also share with the State Unemployment Insurance

Agencies who target independent contractor abuses.

DOL should provide workers’ rights information in foreign languages and hire bilingual investigators.

It should allow workers file claims anonymously.

It should encourage witnesses to come forward by fully enforcing

its own firewall policy of not sharing information with ICE so that

immigrant workers aren’t afraid to come forward.

It should use its hot goods power that permits it to seize goods

that are produced in substandard conditions.

And for complaints it cannot handle, DOL should refer workers

to a private panel of attorneys or clinics available in the communities.

All of these reforms are reasonable, possible, and necessary. They

could be implemented with little effort by DOL and with much impact on our country’s workers, our law-abiding employers who are

unable to compete, and our economy.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ruckelshaus follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you for your testimony. We are now going

to go to questions of the panel. Again, thank you both for being

here.

We will begin with Ms. Washington. Thank you for your commitment to people. When you raise the questions about how people are

being manipulated, set against each other, I was thinking about

some hearings that we have held in the past about how all this billions of dollars of construction is going on in Baghdad and that

area, and not Iraqis can’t get jobs. It is an interesting symmetry

in terms of policy of this reconstruction, so to speak.

Do you believe that the lack of enforcement contributed to low

wages?

Ms. WASHINGTON. It is the lack of enforcement and failure to

take a proactive stance. I mean, we saw the hurricane. We saw the

devastation. We knew from the perspective of the Federal Government just how much manpower, money, and, you know, workers

were needed in the first couple of months.

I was in Beaumont, for example, and in Austin, and, you know,

we all saw the ads. ‘‘Go to New Orleans. Do the cleanups. Make

$15 an hour.’’ So they were all over the Internet.

I would just think, as a person who has been practicing labor and

employment law, who has dealt with the Department of Labor, I

would think, jeez, that is where I need to be, because if I know

there is an influx of all of these workers, I had better make sure

that these employers, Mr. Halli, Ms. Burton, handle these people

properly, and that is not what was happening.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you something, because it occurs to

me people would want to go back home if they had a wage they

could make.

Ms. WASHINGTON. Yes.

Mr. KUCINICH. But if they don’t have a wage they can make or

they can’t get a job, are they going to go back home?

Ms. WASHINGTON. You know, the funny thing about New Orleans

is that we are finding people coming home regardless sometimes,

you know, and the only way to account for that is that folks really

desperately want to be back in the city of New Orleans and they

are taking jobs, be they African American workers who are returning or the immigrant workers who are there, sometimes taking jobs

under really horrendous conditions. I think that is what we have

to fight against.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did these low wages impact the ability of African

American workers to return to their homes?

Ms. WASHINGTON. Yes, to the extent that, you know, if you don’t

have anybody to live with, you know, because the cost of living is

so much higher in the city of New Orleans right now, if you don’t

have a place to stay that you can afford then you just can’t come

home.

What we have found is that, because many immigrant workers

aren’t bringing their families with them, and they can, you know,

oftentimes live four, five, six to a room or to a house, they are not

coming with families that they have to take care of, but instead of

the ability to send money elsewhere. There is just a difference in

what folks can tolerate.

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From an advocacy perspective, again I have to say that what we

do is fight for folks not having to tolerate it at all.

Mr. KUCINICH. Right.

Ms. Ruckelshaus, given your work on labor issues nationally, do

you feel the trends within the Department of Labor exhibited in

New Orleans are unique to the Gulf Coast?

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. No, they are not. As I mentioned in my written testimony, New Orleans is an important microcosm, and it

clearly a very recent and extreme example of the impacts of the

lack of a public enforcer, but Department of Labor is weak all over

the country.

I think one thing that is worth enforcing is that, because there

is no State law that protects fair pay in Louisiana, Mississippi, and

Alabama, there is no other option except for DOL for those States,

so it is a bad situation there because there are two other States

that have that also, but the Gulf Coast States are particularly hard

hit.

Mr. KUCINICH. So in those States what do workers stand to gain

from a more aggressive enforcement model, let’s say, in those

States, you know, like investigations that are part of the DOL?

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. Then there might really be a wage floor.

Maybe the minimum wage will mean something. Maybe there will,

in fact, be overtime for more than 40 hours in a week.

I think without the Department of Labor’s presence there, lowwage worker cases are really difficult to take. Southern Poverty

Law Center can’t do everything. Ms. Washington can’t do everything. We need the public enforcer out there, and employers need

to know they are there, because otherwise they are just going to

continue to violate the law.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think the point that you make about there not

being State enforcement in these particular areas makes it all the

more imperative that this subcommittee focuses on the Federal enforcement, which is the only game in town at this point.

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. Right.

Mr. KUCINICH. So that is why your testimony and Ms. Washington’s testimony and participation is so important.

I am going to now go to my colleague for a final set of questions

here.

Ms. WATSON. Before the hurricane, did the State have its Department of Labor and its own labor standards and laws?

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. No. There is a State agency that looks at payday laws. If you don’t get paid on time in Louisiana that is against

the law. But there is no State Minimum Wage Act in Louisiana,

so there is no requirement——

Ms. WATSON. Well, I am not necessarily looking at the wages,

but, I mean, the standard circulations, licensing, etc., is there any

State agency that does that?

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. If there is a law on the books in Louisiana

or Mississippi that requires licensing, there would be a public agency to enforce that, but there aren’t any for labor standards that we

have been talking about today.

Ms. WATSON. Ms. Washington, do you know if there is a Department of Labor, State Labor? I see somebody nodding his head in

the back. If you would like to come up to the mic—Mr. Chairman,

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I would like to call the gentleman who is nodding his head as

somebody who might have this, because I am trying to get my

mind around just where we put our efforts.

Mr. KUCINICH. Who are you, madam?

Ms. WATSON. Yes. And I wanted to know if there are any set

standards at the State level and, if so, what department they

would be in and how we could go after them, because——

Mr. KUCINICH. If the gentlelady will yield, if there is anybody

here who could answer that question we would like them to come

up to the table and be sworn. That is fine.

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. I do know that there are no——

Mr. KUCINICH. Would you like to answer the question?

Ms. RUCKELSHAUS. There is no State agency that is in charge of

enforcing labor standards, the workplace conditions that we have

been talking about today.

Ms. WATSON. Because I have been watching the whole sort of

aftermath of Katrina. In fact, we had the mayor out to Los Angeles.

Of course, we had the Governor here and the mayor here, too. I understand the Governor is not running again. There was so much

frustration, because going up the ladder was unclear and the bureaucracy was overbearing, and we saw that we argued, some of

us, to keep FEMA out of this big, huge umbrella group called

Homeland Security with 750,000 people transferred over to this big

umbrella and all these agencies underneath. And at a time of crisis

to unravel that was impossible. Therefore, we lost too many people

and too much property and too much security among civil society.

So I see some places, and that is why I mentioned again to the

Chair that I think we ought to come and we ought to raise these

questions, and then when we come back maybe we can carry a

piece of legislation that every single 1 of the 50 States must have

a department that deals with these labor issues, because, you

know, we are talking about people’s jobs, people’s welfare, their incomes. It just wiped out a whole segment in the Gulf.

So I see a lot of things wrong, and I think we need to come and

raise these questions and come back here and see what kind of

Federal policies we need to have.

Now, let me just ask one more question now, Mr. Chair.

This is to Ms. Washington. Do you sense that there is some kind

of retaliation going on in whatever Department of Labor that exists

in Louisiana, and do you see discrimination among the workers?

What is your experience?

Ms. WASHINGTON. I can speak only anecdotally. I think

anecdotally employees have been treated miserably equally, and be

it because they have not been able to get back as quickly as they

want to and/or because when they get back they find out, wow, we

are getting treated really horribly, just like the folks who have

been here for the past year doing the same doorman, sheet-changing position, you know. That is just difficult for me as an advocate

who I would like to say prior to Hurricane Katrina and in those

years where I represented employers for years prior to Hurricane

Katrina, when we had a Department of Labor with investigators

that just, you know, really hit us, and, you know, it is just nothing

now. It is the wild, wild west.

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Ms. WATSON. Well, I see the red light is on. I do have to leave,

Mr. Chairman. But in my closing remarks, we have a lot of work

to do along these lines, because the impact goes right to the individual American who was damaged in more ways, and we have a

whole city that is hurting. New Orleans is not the only one. We

went all along the Gulf Coast when we were down there, and it is

town after town after town in Mississippi, Texas, and so on.

Then I saw the shabby response. I mean, it was embarrassing

with the world view, and was inept with the local view, and you

say now here the United States of America, and we think we can

institute democracy around the globe and fight everyone’s battle,

and we can’t even tend to the problems right here in this country.

I tend to want to make a difference in that way. I am sitting

with the chairman who has the greatest sensitivity to the needs of

all Americans and non-Americans and is out there on the campaign

trail running for President. I would hope I would see in my day a

Dennis Kucinich, because he really has a people’s interest at heart.

So I think what we need to do as a panel here is take in all this

input and then go down there and go through the Department and

go to the State and see what is lacking and put an infrastructure

in place so that the system can move automatically should we have

this kind of tragedy again—and we will.

So thank you very much to the witnesses. I appreciate your patience in staying here. It is after 5 now.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am appreciative of the gentlelady’s kind remarks and I want to once again, on behalf of the subcommittee,

thank Ms. Washington and Ms. Ruckelshaus not only for participating in this panel, but for your dedication to the plight of workers who are all too often easy to ignore because they don’t have the

basic economic power that puts them in a position to be able to insist on their rights. This is not a small matter that you are here

as their voice today.

We, of course, want to thank the participants in all three panels,

those who are from the community groups representing the New

Orleans’ workers and their attorneys, and Mr. DeCamp and his associates from the Department of Labor.

This has been a hearing of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of

the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The title of today’s hearings has been Adequacy of Labor Law Enforcement in

New Orleans. I am Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Chair of the

committee, here with my colleague, Ms. Watson of California. We

want to thank all of you for participating.

This committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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