Lawmaker rips golf club for employing immigrants
Golf Course
State Rep. Tony DeLuca, D-Penn Hills -- whose grandparents came here from Italy -- has issued an open letter denouncing Fox Chapel Golf Club for hiring immigrants to maintain its greens.
The open letter complains that the club is "robbing our college students and residents of jobs." The grounds-keeping jobs pay $7 per hour and include a house the six workers, hired from Mexico, share in the nearby town of Blawnox.
The men, who began work April 1 and will remain on the job until Dec. 1, were hired legally through the H-2B seasonal worker visa program that permits companies to hire immigrants for jobs they were unable to fill.
"I have no problem with immigrants. I find it ironic that an affluent country club has to go and bring H-2B visas in here to cut grass when we've got college kids trying to earn a buck to pay their tuitions," Mr. DeLuca said yesterday. "You mean to tell me we're short of people cutting grass now in this country?"
"We advertised the jobs," said David Cecil, the club's manager. "We received zero applications. That would pretty much thwart Rep. DeLuca's claim that we're taking jobs from people willing to work. We weren't." Mr. Cecil said several country clubs in the area also employ immigrants as groundskeepers.
Mr. DeLuca's letter, issued through the state House Democratic Communications Office and headlined "DeLuca denounces Fox Chapel Golf Club hiring of immigrants," took the club by surprise. Mr. Cecil said he had heard nothing from the legislator until being "blindsided" by calls from reporters.
At points, the letter takes on a harsh edge.
"It is of concern that the immigrants, who are supposedly legal, are being provided with adequate housing and they only have to provide a small portion of their salaries to pay for lodging," Mr. DeLuca writes. "The country club has certainly devised a sweet deal for non-American workers."
Mr. DeLuca said he learned of the hirings when Thomas Smith, the mayor of Blawnox, called him to complain that the Fox Chapel club insisted the workers were exempt from the borough's half-percent wage tax. Mr. Cecil has since said he had received bad advice on the tax issue and was now withholding the tax money from the workers' paychecks.
Mr. Smith yesterday complained that the Fox Chapel Golf Club had declined to provide him proof that the immigrant workers are legal.
"The mayor of a town is charged with public safety," Mr. Smith said "My concern was are they legal."
He said the workers have been "no problem whatsoever" in the town, but is upset that the golf club originally argued the workers were exempt from local wage and school taxes.
In his letter, Mr. DeLuca said he would introduce legislation to "require immigrant workers to pay all taxes that all American workers are forced to pay."
He also said he would introduce legislation requiring businesses hiring immigrants to provide their identification to municipalities in which they live, including proof they are here legally.
He also called for inspections of housing provided to immigrants.
Mr. DeLuca's posture yesterday drew criticism from an advocate for Pittsburgh's Latino community.
"It sounds anti-immigrant and is reflecting what I hear from the anti-immigrant side in the immigration reform debate," said Sister Janice Vanderneck, a Sister of St. Joseph and liaison with the Hispanic community for the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
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