RRC Archives

Education is the key. In My World. Education would be socialized. It would be the only thing that would be socialized though. Everything else would be merit based.
You have student loans, if you become a teacher for a set amount of time then your loans are forgiven. Education open to anyone who wants to exceed. If you just want to lay around and smoke your life away then you get to work the 5.50 hour jobs.

which is still more than what your lazy-out-of-a-job-on-the-internet-all-day job makes!

I have a friend who worked at the Hyatt in Downtown Cincinnati. He is from another country. I helped him get set-up on his bank account. When we went to cash his checks, I noticed he was making about half of the minimum wage!
He had to be at work by 6am and worked sometimes until after 10pm. One night I saw him waiting on the bus to go home scarfing down food like he had not eaton in days. He only had breakfast that day and it was after 10pm when I saw him. After pushing the subject I found out that he was told he was not allowed to have a lunch or dinner break and he was also denied ANY break during the day. Needless to say, we went job hunting that weekend and found him somewhere to work where he's treated a bit better. Because he didn't give his old job two weeks notice, his last check was witheld.

illegal.....can't withhold earned wages..period, unless it is to pay for something you owe the company.

That is really aweful to hear about your friend Chester. I will definitely boycott the Hyatt's from here on out.

he's not an illegal alien either...that's the sad part...
I guess it's still better than where he came from.

Not to be too much of a lawyer here but, as pigsteak said, in most cases it is not legal to withhold someone's last paycheck solely because they didn't give 2-weeks notice. If this happened within the last 2 years you should have your friend get in touch with a lawyer or the Department of Labor. My guess is that a phone call would resolve this as companies like the Hyatt have real lawyers who know that their clients can't pull crap like this. And, apart from the last paycheck it would seem that he also wasn't paid proper minimum wages and overtime. Ok, I'll stop now.

(rant mode on!)
I think that a big part of the problem is that just boycotting individual chains (Hyatt, WalMart, whoever) won't have much of an effect, because so many companies engage in exactly this sort of stuff. I really think that this can only be dealt with effectively at a national, governmental level. Even though this enforcement action was taken under the Bush administration, it seems to me that the mainstream of the Republican party is so 'pro-business' that they aren't going to want to pass strong laws about this sort of stuff (like laws that make the contracting company responsible for the subcontractors actions, or strong minimum wage laws) or put money into the enforcement of laws that protect workers. I wish that the mainstream of the Democratic party was clearly stronger about this sort thing, but they are at least better. I know a lot of people hate to draw political (and, yes, partisan) conclusions from things, but I can't help myself.

Also, I doubt that illegal imigration is as big a problem as it seems. First off, my great-grandparents came to the states (albeit, legally, I think). I doubt that my Irish and Slovak ancestors are any different than the Polish and Mexican folks who are comming today. They took crappy, low-wage jobs - they took the 'three D' jobs - dirty, dangerous and demeaning. One great-grandfather worked with explosives - dangerous. Another was a low-end plumber (think wallowing in crap) - dirty. A great grandmother was a cook (a.k.a. servant) - demeaning. Their kids got (public) education and went on to run businesses and contribute a great deal to the US. Secondly, these people are here because here because someone has created sub-standard jobs that only illegals will take. In this case, it's below-minimum cleaning jobs. Let's face it, at $8 an hour, with our current 'jobless recovery' (WTF!?!), there are lots of citizens who would take those night-shift cleaning jobs. If business didn't create a class of sub-standard jobs, illegal immigrants wouldn't have so many jobs available, and wouldn't want to come.
(rant mode .... off?)

TD, I as an individual can choose to boycott an establishment as a form of a "no" vote. I know the effort it takes to work just on a local/state level and certainly don't have the time to take on the national side fighting for immigration and working conditions. So as an individual I will certainly pass this negative information along about the Hyatt, whether is causes small impact or not, that is my contribution. There is a chain pizza Joint in Cincinnati that I have been boycotting since it's inception and will continue to do so and I am very vocal about it. DEWEY'S is BAD.

Illegal immigration is not a big problem?!? I agree that they are coming here after the jobs that are available, but MY TAXES are paying for their children's public education. Bullshit. If they want to work and pay taxes fine, but they should not be entitled to any public aid if they are illegal. (Illegal, say it with me, "Illegal")