Underground Economy Meeting - Oct. 20 in Fall River

Many local activists attended this meeting to confront the practices of exploitive employers, especially as related to abuses of immigrant workers.  The Underground Economy task force is a group of state agencies, joined with unions and community groups to take on unscrupulous employers who creates an unfair advantage to "good"employers".  

The three areas the Underground Economy deals with are:

Employers who 1) willfully avoid licensing, labor, and tax laws, 2) deal in cash or other off the book practices, and 3) engage in misclassification  of employees 

As worker rights advocates, we need to participate in order to push for the strongest enforcement of Mass laws on these issues - and especially as this is a coordinated effort that could really make some examples.  Michael Bradley, Executive Director of this group, emphasized that immigration status has no bearing on work on the Underground Economy and that there is no relationship to ICE.

Jobs with Justice organized many of the groups to attend this meeting and will be helping facilitate follow up.  Thanks to all of our local activists that participated, including as speakers - Brian, Ron, Tony, Adrian, and Dave.  Other attendees where Jose, Tony, Corinn, and Jim.