Burning Atlanta

Woo-hoo. I'd love to see more of these lawsuits. Sadly, I think there was a suit against Tyson that was tossed by a judge for something similar. The burder was way high. They had to prove that Tyson conspired to bring in illegals to undercut wages. That's by memory and I could be off.

The bad part of lawsuits is that the lawyers will drag them out till hell freezes over. after a few years maybe some witnesses have died, moved and are unreachable. Maybe a lot of thingsw but that's standard procedure for those that have money.

Hope the builder loses, big time.

Unionized carpenters have filed a lawsuit against D.R. Horton Inc., accusing the Texas-based homebuilder of illegally hiring undocumented workers, misclassifying them as independent contractors, and paying them substandard wages off the books.

"This hiring scheme is one of the most blatant abuses of law that I've seen," said attorney and former state labor commissioner Al Kroll, who filed the class action suit on behalf of the New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters.

Jessica Hansen, a spokeswoman for Horton, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

The union claims Horton fired unionized workers at a Cherry Hill construction site in 2006, then replaced them with a subcontractor who hired dozens of workers off the books.

Repeating those moves at job sites throughout the state, the lawsuit says, Horton saved millions of dollars by hiring undocumented immigrants who were willing to work for low pay without benefits.

In Cherry Hill, for instance, the employees Horton "misclassified" as independent contractors rather than full-time employees were paid between $8 and $14 an hour, far below the prevailing carpenter's wage of $21 to $23 per hour, according to the suit. Horton and its subcontractors also failed to pay state and federal wage taxes for the misclassified workers.