Immigrants On An Iowa Roof
by Paul Deaton
While walking in the neighborhood last fall it was hard not to notice a gang of 21 roofers working on a neighbor's house. The job of removing and replacing the shingles took about 5 hours. It looked like there was not enough room for all of them up on that roof. I tracked down the foreman and asked him to price my roof and after a few measurements, he quoted a very low price. He worked as a subcontractor during the week and on weekends he sought additional direct work to keep his crew busy.
On Wednesday, nine people were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers in Hiawatha, Iowa at a roofing job site. They could not produce paperwork indicating their immigration status, were detained and then charged with immigration violations. All of them were from Mexico. We have yet to hear about what may be the real crime in this incident.
According to the news story, Eastern Iowa Construction (EIC) sub-contracted the Hiawatha roofing job to a business in Iowa City. What this means is that EIC made a sales commission on the job and did not perform the actual work. Photographs in the news story showed that the equipment on the site belonged to EIC. They likely received financial consideration for that as well. Nothing wrong here as that is what business is about, buying low and selling dear. Did EIC know the sub-contractor engaged undocumented workers to perform the labor? Hard to image they did not.
The question is about the sub-contractor. Did he comply with Federal Immigration law? Obviously not adequately. Did the sub-contractor pay the minimum wage? Maybe. But do the math on a roofing job. There is not enough to pay for the supplies, disposal of the old shingles, the sales commission, the subcontractor's gross margin and a living wage for nine workers. This is the untold crime in the news story, the exploitation of undocumented workers.
While negotiating a new roof on our house, the author refused to sign a contract as long as the roofer kept language that he could sub-contract the work. He told me he needed to keep this option open, and it seemed most of his customers did not question that provision. I gave the job to someone who would do the work themselves without subcontracting.
We live in a society of law and crimes should be punished. Some portray ICE agents as the bad guys, when they are doing their job. Where are the unions in this picture? Where are the home owners to specify contractors who comply with the law instead of taking a lowest price based on worker exploitation?
One hopes the nine workers arrested by ICE make it home safely, and that in Iowa, home owners will start being concerned with the rights of workers as much as they are concerned with trying to maintain a life style in a time of austerity. It is easy to blame our problems on undocumented immigrants, on ICE and a host of others. These problems can literally be solved much closer to home.
~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. E-mail
Paul Deaton
Blog For Iowa 
Paul, regarding “We have yet to hear about what may be the real crime in this incident.”
They are accused of immigration violations, right?
LikeLike
Chris:
Thank you for reading Blog for Iowa and for commenting.
As the article mentions, the immigration charges are not the real crime, although justice will take its course in this case.
What is the real crime is home owners who look only to the lowest price in getting a roofing job done on their property, without regard to the fact that laborers may be exploited because of their undocumented immigration status.
It takes only a few moments to ask the question about subcontracting. Many home owners do not do this, thus fostering an environment where employers do not comply with immigration law as this subcontractor obviously did not.
This is a complicated issue, and does not lend itself to blaming either law enforcement or the undocumented laborers as the culprits.
Thanks again for writing and giving me this opportunity to clarify my post.
Regards, Paul Deaton
LikeLike
While, certainly, the issue of illegal immigration needs to be addressed and somehow reduced or stemmed, I'm not certain it ever will be as long as the employers who hire illegal immigrants are not severely punished for doing so.
We can keep shipping illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin and it will have little effect on the overall tide of them coming here to find work as long as there are still so many unscrupulous employers willing to hire – and exploit – them.
The notion that “they're doing the work that Americans don't want to” is a canard.
They're simply doing the work that Americans won't do for illegally low wages and in unsafe conditions.
There are people and businesses getting seriously wealthy by hiring illegal immigrants who they can exploit and those profits and businesses should be seized if/when they are found guilty of doing so just as such seizures occur in drug prosecutions.
Only when people know they can face the loss of their assets and livelihoods for breaking the law by employing illegal labor will there be any real movement towards stopping this practice.
LikeLike
Very insightful. Thanks!
LikeLike
I feel sorry for these people but at the same time really it is the law and it take jobs from those locally. Maybe if local pricing was more competitive there would be less of this type of thing going on. But than if you think about it, it does have a bit of a flow on effect. They dont pay taxes so that is left to all the local contractors to pick up. Therefore their prices increase?
LikeLike
Bree:
Thank you for reading Blog for Iowa and for commenting.
If the subcontractor is complying with the law, he would have deducted FICA and state and federal tax withholding from his employee paychecks. This tax payment would be a net gain as the undocumented workers are not entitled to collect unemployment or get a tax refund. One of the benefits to the economy of undocumented workers is the taxes they pay without being eligible to collect government benefits.
Lower wages for workers benefits companies who can sell the job at market rates and make a better gross margin.
There is a better value for home owners to go directly to the people doing the work, cutting out the middle men who cause the increase in prices by adding a layer of profit margin. The thing is, the company should be quizzed about workforce and whether they are in compliance with Federal law before awarding a job to them.
In this situation, it is the contractor who benefits, not the workers.
Thanks again,
Paul Deaton
Weekend Editor
LikeLike