Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB barred illegal-alien workers from suing over the loss of jobs it was unlawful for them to accept in the first place (see Apr. 3-4, 2002), our enterprising bar continues to regard illegals as a promising clientele for employment litigation. For example, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has filed a class-action lawsuit against California grocery chains Albertson’s, Ralphs and Vons alleging that the stores violated the law by hiring independent-contractor firms to provide janitorial services; it claims they owe janitors who worked for these firms various retroactive benefits to which they would have been entitled had they been direct employees of the grocery chains. On Monday the Mexican consulate in San Diego lent its support to the campaign and urged janitors to sign up for the lawsuit, which is expected to go to trial in June. It is considered likely that many of the workers are illegals, but “Steven Joaquin Reyes, an attorney for the Mexican American legal aid group, said the workers do not have to be fearful because the judge in the case has already ruled that the workers’ immigration status is not relevant to the issue of whether they were paid fairly” — wink-wink, nudge-nudge (Edward Sifuentes, “Mexico urges Latino janitors to join class-action suit”, North County Times, Mar. 15). For more on the many-pronged legal campaign to make Southland grocery chains sorry they won their recent dispute with the United Food & Commercial Workers union, see Feb. 1.
“Mexico urges Latino janitors to join class-action suit”
Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB barred illegal-alien workers from suing over the loss of jobs it was unlawful for them to accept in the first place (see Apr. 3-4, 2002), our enterprising bar continues to regard illegals as a promising clientele for employment litigation. For example, the […]
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