Underground Businesses Take Away Jobs From Americans

Underground businesses is another reason there is less hiring of Americans for job. illegal aliens from various countries but mostly from Mexico start businesses here without a license, fictitious business name filing, do not have workman's comp for employees, pay them less and mostly in cash under the table. Plus these underground businesses do not pay taxes, so that cities and states go broke because of a lack of tax money to pay for police, fire, road work and other things to keep a town or state going. Thus legit American businesses have to compete with cheap labor. Many American business men either go out of business because of the competition or business is so bad they are not hiring Americans. This is an older news article but worth reading as it has to do with why their are no jobs for Americans. This is one contractors story of how he is trying to fight this injustice. ================================================================================= Pool and Spa News Read One Man's Fight Against Underground Business. http://www.poolspanews.com/2010/072/072n_smith.html After introducing himself to the California Senate’s Labor Committee, Alan Smith produced a number of bids from his company. Each job had been lost to a contractor showing a workers’ compensation exemption, he explained to the assembled lawmakers. The president of Alan Smith Pool Plastering in Orange, Calif., estimates that he’s already lost $1.5 million in business this year to the underground economy. “How do you run a plastering company with no employees?” Smith asked a day after his June 23 testimony highlighting the impact of unlicensed and illegitimate contractors. “We’re dying on the vine, and I have to come up here and beg [legislators] to enforce the law,” he added. Smith’s five-minute, off-the-cuff presentation before committee members preceded a meeting with the governor’s top policymakers to further promote AB 2770. This proposed legislation would establish standards that trigger an audit of wages, hours and working conditions of employees in an effort to crack down on the underground economy. While lawmakers seek to galvanize support in Sacramento, Smith now will work to develop a coalition of affected trade groups and associations to lobby on behalf of AB 2770’s passage. “I’m losing bids by 10- or 15 percent because these other guys aren’t paying overtime or workers’ comp. insurance,” Smith explained. “Trendwise, I think that in three to four years, guys like me will be out of business, or only doing commercial work. It’s just not sustainable.” For full story click on the link above.