“As documented by OSHA, Cintas has a history of repeated safety violations nationwide, and allowing them a full two years to address pre-existing and well documented hazards is unacceptable.  As the Chair of the Subcommittee on Workplace Protections, it will be one of my top priorities to reform OSHA, strengthen its oversight and enforcement capabilities, and hold employers more accountable to America’s workers.  I look forward to working with the President-Elect, as well as his newly announced Labor Secretary, my friend and colleague Hilda Solis, to ensure that workers are protected, and that companies who chose to threaten their safety through violations of labor laws are held accountable.”

 “On its way out the door, the Bush Labor Department has granted serial offender Cintas a despicable pardon for their failure to protect its workers from hazardous machinery,” Hare said. “The death of Eleazar Torres-Gomez last year was tragic and preventable. In the Tulsa plant where he worked, Cintas failed to install the guarding necessary to prevent him from being dragged into a 300 degree dryer. Workers have complained of the same hazards across the country. Yet this settlement gives Cintas an unacceptably long window to make the necessary improvements, with many plants having up to 2 years.  How many lives will be lost before this company is required to gets its act together? Cintas and the Labor Department may have settled, but I will not rest until justice is served for Mr. Torres-Gomez and every other worker endangered by this company’s lackluster working conditions. I plan to bring this case to the attention of the incoming Labor Secretary and will work with my colleagues on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee to further investigate this matter and achieve a more appropriate resolution.”

“We are also upset that the Department of Labor has changed all of the willful citations to ‘unclassified citations,’ despite the fact that Cintas knew about these hazards and OSHA originally found the company to be negligent,” the members added. “There is nothing in the law that even allows unclassified citations and we are determined to take legislative action to prohibit the declassification of willful citations.”

Among other things, they would create strong new criminal laws to penalize foreign labor recruiters and U.S. employers who lure guest workers into employment under false pretenses. They would also provide foreign workers with vital information on their legal rights when applying for employment or education related U.S. visas.

“For too long, employers and labor recruiters have escaped scot-free when exploiting and abusing guest workers. Not only do these actions take advantage of guest workers, but they also drive down wages and benefits for American workers,” said Miller. “At a time when too many Americans are seeing their jobs and wages slip away, I’m glad that Congress took this important step to start holding crooked employers and labor recruiters accountable, and want to thank Reps. Berman, Conyers and Lofgren for their leadership in making this happen.

“However, imposing criminal penalties is just one part of the equation,” Miller continued.  “We’ve got to do more to improve working conditions and wages for both guest workers and U.S. workers. I hope that the next Congress and new administration will take a comprehensive approach on labor and immigration issues.”

Hundreds of thousands of guest workers come to this country each year, often mortgaging their lives to pay thousands of dollars in fees to recruiters who promise them a good job. In too many cases, these workers arrive here only to work for unlivable wages, in deplorable working conditions – a far cry from what they were promised. Under the Bush administration, guest worker programs have been allowed to operate with little oversight from the Department of Labor.

Miller is also the author of legislation, the Indentured Servitude Abolition Act of 2007, (H.3. 1763), that would more comprehensively put a stop to these practices. Among other things, the bill would discourage employers from using disreputable guest worker recruiters and prohibit foreign labor recruiters from charging workers fees or misleading workers about the type of job, wages or working conditions they could expect.

The Bush administration is expected to release new regulations shortly that would leave both American workers and guest workers in the Department of Labor’s H-2A agricultural and H-2 B non-agricultural programs with fewer labor protections and lower wages.

For more information on Miller’s efforts to root out these abuses, click here.