Supreme Court rejects challenge to disability rules
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (March 27, 2002 1:29 p.m. EST) - The Supreme Court refused
Wednesday to open disability benefits to more Americans, turning back a challenge
to the way the Social Security Administration determines eligibility.
The Bush administration had said changes to cover more people would have cost
$80 billion over the next decade.
Justice Stephen Breyer said that because the law is ambiguous, the Social Security
Administration has discretion in interpreting it. He said the administration's policies
are not unreasonable.
About 2 million Americans apply each year for disability benefits under two Social
Security programs, Title II and XVI. The government rejects claims from people who
were able to work within one year of suffering a disability.
Justices overturned a decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which
determined that benefits were owed to a former Virginia school teacher with
schizophrenia even though he had gotten a grocery store job within a year of his
diagnosis.
nandotimes.com
Court decides illegal immigrants not entitled to same rights as U.S. workers
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (March 27, 2002 5:23 p.m. EST) - Immigrants who work illegally in
U.S. plants, restaurants and fields do not have the same rights to restitution as
American citizens who are mistreated on the job, a divided Supreme Court ruled
Wednesday.
The court ruled that a plastics company owed nothing to a Mexican man who used a
friend's identification to get a job. The Bush administration argued that without the
threat of punishment for employers, some of the millions of undocumented workers
in the United State might be exploited.
Justices split 5-4 along ideological lines on whether companies can be forced to give
back pay to illegal workers wrongly fired or demoted.
"Awarding back pay to illegal aliens runs counter to policies underlying" federal
immigration laws, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote in the court's opinion.
The National Labor Relations Board has been allowing wronged undocumented
workers to collect back pay since 1995. The board makes sure that employees are
not punished for engaging in union activities and protesting employment conditions.
The chief tool is requiring back pay, or restitution.
"This decision has ominous implications for the enforcement of labor laws across the
board," said William B. Gould IV, the board's chairman from 1994-98. "It will bring
into our borders more exploitable low-wage workers."
As many as 7 million undocumented workers have jobs in the United States, the
court was told. Six states with high immigration populations had argued that
punishments are needed to protect workers.
The Supreme Court has held that undocumented workers are protected by federal
labor laws. Justices said in this case that did not entitle them to back pay "for
wages that could not lawfully have been earned and for a job obtained in the first
instance by a criminal fraud."
Jose Castro had a minimum wage job operating a plant blender at Hoffman Plastic
Compound's plant in Paramount, Calif. He and three other employees were laid off
in 1989 after they supported efforts to unionize the plant. He did not speak English,
nor did half of the other plant workers, according to court records. The labor board
said Hoffman owed Castro about $67,000.
Hoffman can be subject to "significant other sanctions" including a requirement that
it prominently post a notice to employees about their rights, Rehnquist said in the
decision.
"That's meaningless. That's simply a slap on the wrist," said Gould, who now
teaches labor law at Stanford University.
Maurice Baskin, Hoffman's lawyer, said the court used common sense in determining
"employers should not be required to make windfall payments to illegal aliens."
Dissenting Justice Stephen Breyer said the back pay penalty "reasonably helps to
deter unlawful activity that both labor laws and immigration laws seek to prevent."
Joining Breyer were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg.
The decision was criticized by immigrant and women rights groups.
"Even though we pay lip service to the idea that there are basic human rights, we
are willing to relax those human rights for a group of folks we wish were not in the
country," said Martha Davis, legal director for the NOW Legal Defense and Education
Fund.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided 5-4 with Castro, who
was fired after handing out union cards to fellow employees.
Arizona, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, West Virginia and Puerto Rico
urged the Supreme Court to uphold that decision.
The case is Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. National Labor Relations Board, 00-1595.
nandotimes.com |
