Thu
May 26 2011
07:58 am
More details emerge about the tragic accident on the Henley Bridge project that claimed the life of a second worker in four months.
The victim was an undocumented worker from Mexico. His son, also undocumented, was also working on the project when his father was killed. He said he and his father had discussed quitting the job because it was too dangerous. The son also says they and other illegal immigrants had worked on other projects for the contractor.
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Thank You KNS
I have to give my Blind Hog Award to KNS for having the decency to disable comments on that sad news.
They treated the man with the respect he deserved for doing his best to support his family.
They treated the man with the
They treated the man with the respect he deserved for doing his best to support his family.
I agree wholeheartedly. And on disabling comments.
Hopefully they will do a follow up on this contractor. Safety violations. Workplace fatalities. And now getting caught hiring undocumented workers. One of whom got killed on their work site. Good luck to the poor guy's family getting justice.
They really ought to be in some deep shit, but given our current wink wink nudge nudge regulatory environment in TN I wouldn't bet on it. A couple of fines and it's business as usual.
Straight out of the Woody Guthrie songbook
Is this the best way to repair our big bridges? For profit-driven American companies to exploit hard-working decent Mexicans and other Latinos, their bodies left like dry leaves on the ground?
Maybe our national anthem should be changed to "Deportees."
Exactly, VP. From what I'm
Exactly, VP.
From what I'm reading, the poor guy didn't even speak English. So how does a foreman or safety man tell him "hey, clear the deck, there's a crane coming over your head with several tons of concrete." How does he understand what they are being told at safety meetings? Etc. I doubt they have translators.
And bonus, if undocumented workers spot job site hazard, do you think they are going to report them? Not if they don't want to get deported.
P.S. I guess it also helps get the low bid if you're hiring undocumented workers willing to work for lower wages than a local or (heaven forbid) union guy. Wonder if they have W4s for all their workers?
Road and bridge projects
Road and bridge projects usually have federal money in them, which would mean Davis-Bacon wage rates apply. Unless they were paying cash under the table (and if they were, why would they even need his false documents?), this man was probably not working for substandard rates.
Davis-Bacon schedule in Knox
Davis-Bacon schedule in Knox County for highway work:
(link...)
$7.62/hr for a Group 1 Laborer up to $16.60/hr for electrician work.
Have any idea what his skills classification was?
As long as we're speculating, he was possibly earning $0.37/hr above federal minimum wage, which works out to less than $15,000 annually assuming full time.
(But, of course, no one would dare screw him out of overtime so long as all of his "papers" were in order & whatnot.)
Just read the KNS story. Very
Just read the KNS story. Very touching. Must say it brought a tear. And, hooray for disabling the comments. The commenters over there frequently have trouble with simply humanity.
this is a very interesting
this is a very interesting tidbit from a KNS story:
"TDOT officials initially identified Estrada-Jimenez as "Rodolfo Bustillos," but later retracted that statement, saying it was based on incorrect information provided by Britton Bridge.
How do you do that? release a name, and then oops, not him? and the name was released by TDOT.
When I Retire
When I retire , hopefully with a pension if the Republicans don't steal it, I'm going to tell the stories and explore the ones like this. It's worse than you think.
When did it become the social
When did it become the social norm for people to hate anyone different? Didn't we get beyond that? Norms had changed for the good in one small way - it was no longer PC to say n------ any more, so all that hate had to go somewhere else.
Rush Limbaugh and his nasty ilk are the forward artillery spotters for the 101st Chairborne.