Dane County Sued for Exploiting Latino Workers

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is proud of her county’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning the legal status of immigrants. At a rally on the steps of the state Capitol, Falk bragged about the Dane County ordinance that prohibits workers from asking about the legal status of people receiving county services. Falk also said “as an employer, Dane County actively recruits and hires Latinos in all positions…”

Kathleen Falk talks a good game about doing right by the Latino community, but under Falk’s supervision, Dane county was sued twice for back wages owed to Latino workers who were hired by a county demolition contractor and paid sub-standard wages.

In 2002, Dane County hired Champion Environmental Services to complete demolition of the Hamilton Place building in downtown Madison. Champion’s bid for the project was almost $100,000 less than the county had budgeted for the work. A third party complaint to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) revealed that Champion had several Latino workers who collected cash payments of only $10 per hour when the prevailing wage for such work is over $25 per hour.

The complaint also indicated that workers were putting in 10 hour days without overtime compensation.DWD was not successful collecting the back wages from Champion. The company even attempted to falsify payroll records for the Latino workers. The matter was referred to the Department of Justice and Dane County was ordered to issue two checks for back wages.

Because 90% of the Hamilton Place material was to be reused or recycled, the laborers manually removed material floor by floor. Kathleen Falk’s failure to question Champion Environmental Services low ball bid resulted in the exploitation of Latino workers used to perform physically demanding and potentially dangerous labor.

The following links contain complaints, judgements, redacted payroll records and other supporting documents.

http://wisopinion.com/blogs/abovethebelt/FALK_1.pdf

http://wisopinion.com/blogs/abovethebelt/FALK_2.pdf