Am I the last naive moron out there?

Salty

Salty

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Salty
So, I hired a local reputable roofing company to have my roof replaced. They sent only 3 guys to reroof a 2700 sq foot house, 3 car garage, and 2500 square foot hangar...... That was my first problem. I didn't make a fuss, probably should have in retrospect. The crew was working hard and going fast for only 3 guys.

Today, I'm standing outside watching the shingles finally get loaded on the roof and an immigration truck drives by. 20 seconds later the roofing crew is driving away down the road....

I call the roofer all ****ed off and he says "a white crew won't work on a roof with that pitch, all we had was those 3 and 2 don't have papers". Admits it flat out. They aren't coming back today or tomorrow, they want to work Sat and Sun because immigration won't be around.

Am I just being naive in getting ****ed off at this company for putting me in this situation? Neither of my roofs have shingles and my only choice to get them up there is to let illegals do it on the weekend and **** off all my neighbors.
 
I'm not even sure what I could do if I wanted. Nobody is going to get a crew out here anytime soon to do this work (I waited 6 weeks to get this crew). I really have no choice but to allow illegals to finish the job.
 
aside from the delay, what situation are you in?
 
James331 said:
aside from the delay, what situation are you in?
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1. I thought there were laws against hiring illegals. Again, maybe I'm just a naive moron.
2. How can these guys be licensed, insured, etc if they aren't legal.
3. I have to allow them to work on the weekend when my neighbors are not expecting construction to occur.
 
Did they sign a contract? If so, labor issues are his problem. Not yours.

Disclaimer: This is not a legal opinion, and I am not licensed to practice in your state.
 
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Tell him to come out on the weekend and call Immigration and tell them to come out on the weekend.
 
EdFred said:
Tell him to come out on the weekend and call Immigration and tell them to come out on the weekend.
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Are you going to come lay the shingles?
 
Salty said:
1. I thought there were laws against hiring illegals. Again, maybe I'm just a naive moron.
2. How can these guys be licensed, insured, etc if they aren't legal.
3. I have to allow them to work on the weekend when my neighbors are not expecting construction to occur.
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1. Yes (there are laws.)
2. The insurance and the license (if any) is obtained by the company. Not by the illegal employees. (unless your state issues licenses to individual roofers, like they do for hairstylists. But your state may issue licenses to illegals just like some states issues driver's licenses to illegals.)
3. Does your contract prohibit work on the weekend? Are your neighbors' expectations part of the contract? If not, then yes, it would seem so.
 
You paid for the service. I don't care who does it as long as it gets done, correctly. But if they already stripped the shingles off the roof and now won't be back I'd be a little upset especially if rain is in the forecast. As for the neighbors...its construction and it happens 7 days a week.
 
I work in residential construction in good sized suburban areas. I never see anyone other than hispanics installing roofs. The guy is probably right. There may be white or black crews working in more rural areas, I don't know.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the answer is. I wish you well in trying to find a solution.
 
I don't know how all the laws work - but what if one of those guys fell off your roof? Is the roofing company's Worker's Comp covering him if he's illegal? Or are you and your insurance company going to have to pony up?
 
What simtech said. I wouldn't give it a second thought. I'm sure the crew that put my new roof on last year was illegal, even though I hired a major player to do the job. I made sure they had plenty of coffee and donuts in the morning and Diet Cokes and pizza at lunch.
 
Matthew said:
I don't know how all the laws work - but what if one of those guys fell off your roof? Is the roofing company's Worker's Comp covering him if he's illegal? Or are you and your insurance company going to have to pony up?
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Not a major concern. The odds of one falling off a roof is slim. If a worker (legal or illegal) did get injured, sure, your med pay is there for injuries regardless of fault. But liability...none, unless he somehow contributed to the injury.
 
Who gives a damn about what your neighbors want on the weekend. It's not like they're going to be running a jackhammer all day, it a bunch of roofing nailers and probably Hispanic music playing on the radio. They have the whole thing shingled in 2 days with a 3-man crew. Not hardly enough that a neighbor should be disgruntled. As far as the moral issue of knowingly allowing illegals to roof your house, that's on you and what you're comfortable with. Are you okay being complicit with the breaking of federal law in exchange for the convenience of having your roof completely quicky?
 
So, I'm no lawyer but I'd expect all the legal responsibilities would lie with a contractor. You hired the contractor to do a job and it's up to him to follow the law and do what was agreed upon for the approximate quoted price. If he doesn't follow the law that's his problem as long as he takes care of you. Unless your neighbors are particularly crabby I wouldn't think a weekend of getting a roof finished would be that big of a deal but I live in my area not yours.

I can tell you here in the rural midwest I hired a construction crew that happened to be run by a friend I went to HS with. I am absolutely sure all of his crew were citizens and they had no complaints about putting new shingles on a pitched roof. Dunno how things work in other areas but I always go back to him when I need stuff done, once you get a contractor you know is trustworthy and reliable keep 'em.
 
Gerhardt said:
Not a major concern. The odds of one falling off a roof is slim. If a worker (legal or illegal) did get injured, sure, your med pay is there for injuries regardless of fault. But liability...none, unless he somehow contributed to the injury.
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Fall, nail through a foot, who knows. When my wife worked at an ER for a while they'd get people in with grease burns from the fryers they were operating in the restaurant kitchen. There was always someone from the restaurant that would translate, "He says it happened at home."
 
Salty said:
Are you going to come lay the shingles?
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Well you either have a problem with illegals doing the work or you don't. If you do, you're morally obligated to let immigration know. If you don't you're just a contributor.
 
Let them finish. Pay in cash. Talk cash discount. Start the negotiations at 50%.

I had my roof replaced a few years ago. I would bet everything the only legal citizen was the guy that owned the company. They removed and replaced the shingles in about 7 hours, then cleaned everything up. I had already negotiated the cash price, and was very happy with the price and work.

I was very tempted to call a friend of mine that had bought a former forest service truck and see f he would drive by. It is government green..... but I didn't.
 
EdFred said:
Well you either have a problem with illegals doing the work or you don't. If you do, you're morally obligated to let immigration know. If you don't you're just a contributor.
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Them ICE men don't like working on weekends either. They subbed weekend inspections out to some damned foreigners.
 
Salty said:
1. I thought there were laws against hiring illegals. Again, maybe I'm just a naive moron.
2. How can these guys be licensed, insured, etc if they aren't legal.
3. I have to allow them to work on the weekend when my neighbors are not expecting construction to occur.
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So it sounds like the only concern to YOU is that you don’t want them working on the weekend, tell the company that.

Again if the company you hired has the credentials you required, does the work specified, personally I have enough other stuff of my own to do then to worry about their personnel problems. I mean send a army of midgets for all I care, just get the job done to spec and on time, their INS problems are their problems and unless you think the guy was recording you to try to entrap you or something crazy like that, who cares?

Again with where this country is right now, there are about a million things you should take offense to before this type of meh, whatever level stuff.
 
Hard question. I'm half inclined to say let them finish the work, and then report them. BUT, if you do that you can kiss your warranty good by.

Ever consider that INS saw this company pulled the permits, and was investigating based on prior reports?
 
Matthew said:
I don't know how all the laws work - but what if one of those guys fell off your roof? Is the roofing company's Worker's Comp covering him if he's illegal? Or are you and your insurance company going to have to pony up?
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This is what I’m saying.
 
This is going to sound harsh, and it's not meant to, honest. But you're looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
 
Why would you have to pay workers comp to someone working for a company you hired? Wouldn't the workers comp be on the employer?

Even if there was a lawsuit isn't this kind of thing why we carry homeowners insurance? So we don't have to obsess over it?
 
Once he notified you he is using illegals,you became part of the problem. Also if he can’t get a regular crew to work on the roof ,because of the pitch,you have a serious problem. You have to live with your conscious. I would guess the contractor is not a reputable person. Unfortunately I don’t have a solution to your problem.
 
If it was me, with the work already started I'd just get it finished now and never hire that contractor again.
 
Gerhardt said:
This is going to sound harsh, and it's not meant to, honest. But you're looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
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Really? I don’t have a house with no shingles for at least 5 days? I don’t have a crew that walked off the job? Pray tell how do you figure this isn’t a problem even if you ignore the legal issues.
 
Some good perspective here from all though. Thanks.
 
It does seem like I’m not the only one that is assuming if you hire a reputable company you aren’t going to have illegals doing the work.
 
Salty said:
It does seem like I’m not the only one that is assuming if you hire a reputable company you aren’t going to have illegals doing the work.
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I hired the biggest roofing company in the state. And I never thought for a minute that anyone who could speak English would show up to do the heavy lifting.
 
Honestly, I have plenty of contacts and could have had this job done much cheaper if I'd directly hired illegals. I went to a big company because I DIDN'T want exactly this type of hassle.
 
There used to be a guy that knocked on doors in my neighborhood, he was looking for work as a landscaper. Any digging, mulching, trimming, or other labor you wanted and he was your guy. I used him for some projects (removing bushes, that sort of thing), and paid cash.

A few of the neighbors used to really trash talk about him, and anyone that hired him, by making fun of us for hiring an illegal. The deal is, the guy was legal, and was working his tail off to be able to bring his wife and son into the US legally. He and I had some pretty good conversations about that. There are some people out there that really do want to do things the right way, and still don't want the hassle of dealing with an ICE truck driving around looking for day laborers.
 
We a two painters work on the house. They barely spoke English. I assume they were from Mexico. Turns out they were from rural New Mexico. Assumptions can be wrong.
 
Ravioli said:
Hard question. I'm half inclined to say let them finish the work, and then report them. BUT, if you do that you can kiss your warranty good by.

Ever consider that INS saw this company pulled the permits, and was investigating based on prior reports?
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Let them finish THEN report them? That’s some next level messed up crap right there.


Illegals are a big $$ industry with lots of marketing, long and short lots of goverment folks would be unemployed and gov departments and publicly paid private sectors corps no longer needed if we actually stopped illegals with a few basic banking/public service/etc policy changes, something much poorer counties who can’t afford ICE, Black Hawks, big pensions etc do, buuuuuut we don’t, too many government workers and lobbyists benefit from illegals, they found a way to make money and jobs off the mere presence of the poorest of the poor, so I have a hard time getting too bent out of shape over some illegal, the system on the other hand that both encourages him to sneak in, while making money on putting on a show to keep him out, that’s another story.

Again I’d just worry about the quality and price of the roof job, if that’s to spec be happy, and maybe find a hobby to better occupy your time.
 
I can’t see how you’d be liable if the company’s workers got injured on the job. That would fall on their workers comp.

We had a roof installed and hired out folks to lay stacked stone a few years back and their workers were all Hispanic. From my recollection, they were very hard working and got the job done very quickly. Were they legal? I have no idea.
 
I think on the moral debate and honestly the legal one as well the burden here has to fall on the contractor. In this case, OP knew because INS happened to show up. In any normal circumstance you'll make an agreement with a contractor and bunch of guys show up. What are you going to do, insist on seeing all their papers? It's not like you can tell by just looking at them.

I would personally like to see tougher laws on the employers of illegal workers but it's not reasonable to expect every homeowner needing work done to be responsible for figuring out who is legal and who isn't. That's 100% on the contractor IMO.
 
Salty said:
Really? I don’t have a house with no shingles for at least 5 days? I don’t have a crew that walked off the job? Pray tell how do you figure this isn’t a problem even if you ignore the legal issues.
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Your homeowners insurance will pay for tarps and other associated supplies if you want to secure the roof until proper labor is used or a new contractor is hired.
 
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