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A Stranger in a Strange Land
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| The knights of contracting met at the Utility Construction EXPO ‘08 in Kauai, Hawaii
(much sunnier than Camelot) — (left to right) Terry Dillon, Dan East, Larry Fortin, Mark
Fuglevand, Florentino Gregorio and Kevin Lange. |
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The “melting pot” was once the descriptor of the United States diverse culture — as migrant workers came to the States with nothing more than a dream of freedom and respect for hard work. In the new century, that pot has begun to boil over with 2007 being a banner year for immigration reform and strict enforcement. With new laws and legislation, the hardships and headaches for those affected by immigration is often regionalized.
“Immigration hasn’t had much affect on us in the Seattle area. Very little of our workforce is Hispanic; the bulk of that demographic is in landscaping,” admits Mark Fuglevand. “But we are expecting it, especially with the age of our employees. They have all been with us 10, 15 years, many are getting close to 60 years old and there are not many people to fall in behind.”
“In our case, it is very complicated and has affected us tremendously. Our workforce has gone from 10 percent Hispanic to 90 percent in our field people. That’s just a reality of where we are,” explains Larry Fortin of Team Fishel of Las Vegas. “With the purchase of Kaccel Communications Services by Team Fishel and the exposure on a national level, it’s even more complicated.
So now we have staff that’s dedicated just to making sure that all the paper work is processed. We’ve actually let some of our people from the last two or three years go that couldn’t produce the paper work. We have a company mind set that says, ‘we aren’t taking any chances on immigration policy.’ The good news is that the business environment in our valley is so tough that we can afford to do that because there are a lot of people knocking on our door.”
It was already apparent that the locale and size of the companies was determining the effect immigration is having.
“I’m small enough right now, just started a couple years ago, where the effect is just keeping track of a couple crews,” Kevin Lange, from Maryland, chimes in. “Basically, it’s just checking their I-9s, making sure all the documentation is correct every six months or so. For my company, it’s not as big of a task but I like to stay involved because it’s going to be quite an issue.”
“We are just following the current legislation right now,” says Dan East, owner of Cone Construction. “It hasn’t affected us yet [in New Mexico], but we are paying attention to it.”
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| Terry Dillon (left) tells his story of employee drug abuse,
as Larry Fortin and Mark Fuglevand (middle, right)
listen intently. |
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“And we were lucky in Indiana that they jumped on legislation that basically said that it’s on the federal level and it’s not a problem,” Terry Dillon adds. “Across the nation, from what I hear, it’s a big problem. If they continue to make it our problem — where we can’t do federal contracts — it scares me to death.”
But there are more factors in the effect of immigration, and Florentino Gregorio was eager to voice his opinion on a matter that means more to him than tedious document checking and legislation.
“For myself, immigration touches home because I came to this country as an immigrant in 1974 when I was 13 years old. I’m a big advocate for the immigration situation. I’m having a hard time staying within the boundaries, but we have to because of the law and there is no if, and or but about it,” he says. “I’m afraid that some of the laws put in place might make our workforce shortage more difficult. I’m hoping that we don’t get too extreme with our immigration laws and cause more problems than we already have. I think getting involved with Washington is going to be very important. I don’t think some of these politicians have any idea how much we rely on the Hispanic population to do our work and how hard it is to do the routine [documentation] checks. There are guys out there that get documents that look like the real thing.”
“Very genuine documents,” Fortin agrees.
“Very genuine,” Gregorio reiterates. “So we have to protect ourselves. If they put all these laws in place that make us look like the Immigration and Naturalization Service, it’s going to be even more difficult — and then we need more people. The construction industry has not done a good job of promoting itself as a good business for people to be involved in.”
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