Immigrant Games. Ex-Construction Supervisor Questions Firm’s Labor Practices. Seattle, Washington

“The two illegal-immigrant workers open their wallets and pull out paycheck stubs: $295 (after taxes) for a 40-hour week. That’s $9.12 an hour. The checks, both workers say, were payment from Ethan Construction, where, until last month, they both say they worked at the company’s old Rainier Brewery building project.

In mid-June, these two workers say they were part of a crew of ten immigrants who quit the Rainier Brewery job after Ethan management asked them to fill out I-9 forms. All employers are legally bound to have employees fill out I-9 worker-eligibility forms that require valid citizenship or immigration papers, so it seems like Ethan Construction was just doing its part to ensure it wasn’t employing illegal workers. But that’s not what the construction supervisor, Cliff Gomes, believes. Gomes, who quit his job in early July, insists that the I-9s were the centerpiece of a scenario in which Ethan Construction exploited cheap illegal-immigrant labor while trying to protect itself from legal liability.”

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