How are illegals paying taxes when paid in cash by a subcontractor on the project?

MARIETTA – An undercover agent for the watchdog group Jobs for Georgians has worked as a bricklayer the past three months on the construction of the new Cobb County Superior Courthouse, and told the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday he has evidence that illegal immigrants have been employed and paid in cash by a subcontractor on the project.

Commission Chairman Sam Olens said that the county would take “immediate action” if the allegations of illegal employment prove to be accurate, but added that right now they are only allegations.

Jose Alvarez may have looked like just another bricklayer, but he has been gathering evidence for Jobs for Georgians that he says substantiates the group’s suspicions that illegal immigrants are working under the watch of one of the project’s subcontractors.

Alvarez, who is also a business agent for the Washington, D.C.-based organization International Bricklayers, said he and another construction worker with Jobs for Georgians, Frank Lozano, began working on the site in November. Posing as bricklayers, they formed relationships with the workers and subcontractors and continued their work into January.

He was told subcontractor Zebra’s policy is for workers to show up at the job site in order to obtain work. But Alvarez said he could not get “a straight answer” from Victor Candelaria, a contractor hired by Zebra to oversee workers laying the blocks at the courthouse, about how much his workers were being paid. Alvarez said Candelaria’s reluctance to give him answers aroused his suspicions.

After discussions with other workers, Alvarez and Lozano learned they were being paid $10 an hour, as opposed to $18 an hour, which Alvarez said is the normal hourly rate. He said he soon found out there was a reason for the unreasonably low pay.

“I have a recorded conversation with Damian Perez, a bricklayer from Canada with legal status, who told me that he asked Victor when he was first hired whether he needed to present them with his papers, and he was told no. He said all he would need to do is go through a drug screening and the safety training set up by Turner, and that was it,” Alvarez said. “So I asked him why everyone was getting paid so low, and he told me Victor would take the checks issued to him by Zebra, cash them, then pay the workers in cash. He told them they were being paid less than usual, but that it was OK because there would be no taxes taken out. I can’t say I was surprised, because we knew this was going on not only with Zebra but with others, but it was good to finally get it on tape.”

Alvarez and a dozen other members of Jobs for Georgians voiced their concerns during Tuesday morning’s Cobb Board of commissioners meeting. Alvarez provided the commission with invoices that he said show Zebra even cheated Candelaria out of his $9,000 retainer.

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