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By
Karen Tumlin
NILC Skadden Fellow
In a precedent-setting decision, the California Court of Appeals
recently held that immigration status is irrelevant to claims for unpaid
prevailing wages. Reyes v. Van Elk, Ltd., 148 Cal. App. 4th 604
(2007). Under California law, prevailing wages are the minimum wage for
public works contracts. The plaintiffs are construction workers who
performed welding work for the defendant, Van Elk Limited. While Van
Elk paid the plaintiffs some wages for this work, they were not paid the
required prevailing wage. The plaintiffs filed suit in a California
superior court for the difference between what they were paid and the
rate they were entitled to be paid.
The superior court granted summary judgment in favor of the
defendants, finding that the plaintiffs, as undocumented workers, lacked
standing to recover unpaid prevailing wages. Alternatively, the court
held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hoffman Plastic
Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 437 U.S. (2002), indicates that the
California statutes making immigration status irrelevant to actions to
enforce the state labor and employment laws are preempted by the federal
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). (For a summary of
the decision in Hoffman, see “Supreme
Court Bars Undocumented Worker from Receiving Back Pay Remedy for
Unlawful Firing,” Immigrants’ Rights Update, Apr. 12, 2002.)
On appeal, the appellate court reversed the lower court’s ruling
that undocumented workers lacked standing to bring actions to enforce
state labor and employment law. Specifically, the court rejected the
argument that Hoffman can be read to bar claims by undocumented
workers for work already performed but not paid.
The appellate court also rejected the employer’s argument that
IRCA preempts the California laws enacted following the Hoffman
decision that make immigration status irrelevant to the enforcement of
state labor, employment, civil rights, and housing statutes. The
court’s preemption analysis is particularly strong, making clear that
employers cannot use Hoffman as an excuse to violate California’s
labor, employment, civil rights, and housing laws.
The appellate court found that allowing undocumented workers to
enforce state labor and employment law furthers, rather than frustrates,
federal immigration policy. The court observed that “[a]llowing
employers to hire undocumented workers and pay them less than the wage
mandated by statute is a strong incentive for employers to do so, which
in turn encourages illegal immigration. . . . Moreover, it is not the
public which benefits from the savings.”
In addition, the court also emphasized the negative incentive
that would be created if undocumented workers could not hold employers
liable if they failed to pay the state prevailing wage. “Allowing
employers to hire undocumented workers and pay them less than the
prevailing wage would also subvert [federal immigration policy] by
condoning and encouraging future violations by employers,” the court
found. “Moreover, such awards do not condone future unauthorized work;
rather they make clear that employers should not be allowed to profit
from employing undocumented workers and then exploiting them.”
NILC appeared as amicus curiae in this case on behalf of the
Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, Bet Tzedek
Legal Services, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., the Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles, and the San Francisco–based Legal Aid
Society–Employment Law Center.
The Reyes decision joins the long list of federal cases
establishing that immigration status is irrelevant to claims for work
already performed. (For example, several courts have found that
undocumented workers can recover, under the federal Fair Labor Standards
Act, wages for work performed. For a discussion of federal case law
finding immigration status undiscoverable in Fair Labor Standards Act
lawsuits, see "Michigan Appeals Court Rules that Workers’ Social
Security Numbers Are Not Relevant to Their Suit for Back Pay of Wages
Earned but Not Paid," IRU, June 30, 2005.) Importantly, in this case
the appellate court used the same logic to extend these federal holdings
to the state law context. In many cases, as here, a state statute may
provide more protection to the worker than the comparable federal
statute.
(For a copy of the amicus brief in this case, contact author
Karen Tumlin.)
Reyes v. Van Elk, Ltd., 148 Cal. App. 4th 604 (2007).
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