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We find it difficult to believe that a metropolitan Chicago employer can employ a work force almost exclusively made up of Spanish-speaking men of Mexican origin at wages within pennies of the minimum wage (and at hard and unappetizing work) without even suspecting that some of these employees are illegal aliens.

N.L.R.B. v. Sure Tan, Inc., 672 F.2d 592, 601 n. 14 (7th Cir. 1982)

Cohen v. Cohen

Perdue Farm Class action

Maples faces class-action suit

A class-action lawsuit alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act has been filed against officers and employees of Scottsboro-based Maples Industries, Inc. It is apparently the first such case filed in this area.
The suit, which alleges the defendants conspired to depress wages by hiring large numbers of illegal immigrants, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Northern Division on behalf of Audrey Broussard-Wadkins and Darlene Harbin and “all those similarly situated.”
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SK Foods’ Salyer faces class-action lawsuit

A federal judge has certified a class-action suit alleging that Monterey agribusiness executive Scott Salyer intentionally hired undocumented workers to depress wages at his tomato processing plant in Lemoore.

The ruling last week by U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Ishii in the 2006 suit by a former machinist at the tomato-processing plant came as two of Salyer’s big California companies — SK Foods LP and Salyer American Fresh Foods — are dissolving under pressure from major lenders. Salyer has denied the allegation of intentionally hiring undocumented workers.

On Tuesday, a court-appointed receiver in charge of Salyer American Fresh Foods said lenders were cutting off financing for crops being grown for the company — a move that Salyer’s business attorney said would shut down the company and force the layoffs of up to 1,060 seasonal and full-time employees. The Bank of the West and two other lenders demanded the receivership because they said Salyer American owed them about $34 million.
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Forging a new use for civil RICO

DESPITE A STRING OF DEFEATS before federal trial judges, Howard W. Foster has doggedly pressed on with a type of litigation he pioneered: Using RICO to target companies that allegedly hire undocumented workers for the purpose of driving down wages.

His persistence appears to be paying off. Foster, a shareholder at Chicago’s Johnson & Bell, has brought five Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act suits since 1999, usually on behalf of employees with valid work authorization. Four were dismissed at an early stage by trial judges. But in three of those cases, Foster has persuaded federal appellate courts to reinstate his suits.
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Using RICO laws to slow down illegal immigration

It wasn’t until Howard Foster settled in Chicago one year out of law school that the issue of illegal immigration struck a chord with him.

“I was seeing massive illegal immigration in front of my face, right here. In every restaurant, in every movie theater, the cleaning crews,” Foster said. “I felt like we were living back in the 1920s during Prohibition. The law was being massively violated. Nobody was doing anything about it, and it was being taken for granted that you could break the law with impunity, which bothered me as a lawyer.”
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