In a time where the political class shies away from controversial decisions and opts for the expedient ones, the Jan. 22 Hoquiam City Council vote on E-Verify is a breath of fresh air.
The vote arose because the City’s forester asked that the City rescind its policy requiring E-Verify be used to assure people working on city forest projects have a valid Social Security number.
What it really comes down to is money. Without E-Verify, the contractors can use illegals to do the work much more cheaply.
How does this work? Well, the labor contractor hires illegals as ‘independent contractors’ and then pays them in cash.
This bypasses all those pesky expenses such as Income Tax, Social Security Tax, L&I etc.
Of course, not paying taxes and paying low wages give these unscrupulous labor contractors job bidding price advantages that keep out all competition from companies that play by the rules.
The Hoquiam City Council justly took a stand against this common way to exploit third world migrants.
The council also stood up for the taxpayers of this area who go by the law and have to pay more to make up for those who cheat.
This method of using undocumented workers goes on in many businesses and E-Verify is used by many cities and counties to combat this form of deception. Clark County is one of many in this state that require the use of E-Verify. Grays Harbor County was also onboard until Herb Welch retired and Frank Gordon prevailed on his then protégé, Vickie Rains, to vote with him to throw out E-Verify and go back to the old way of allowing what often results in tax cheating and labor exploitation.
The City of Hoquiam has shown that government can take the higher road.
J.E. Meyer, Markham
