Subcontractor taken off Pickens school job (Anderson Independent Mail)

Subcontractor taken off Pickens school job
By Nikie Mayo
Posted October 25, 2010 at 10:03 p.m.

LIBERTY — A subcontractor for the Pickens County school system has been evicted from a construction site for refusing to cooperate with a state investigation that is aimed at finding illegal-immigrant workers.

Land Construction of Seneca, which has been doing masonry for the school system’s new career and technology center, will not be allowed back on the site in Liberty until officials are satisfied that the company has complied with requests from the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

Superintendent Henry Hunt said school system officials have been told that Land Construction has, “on at least one occasion, failed to provide access” to the state investigators.

“If Land will not let LLR investigate Land’s forces at the project site,” Hunt wrote in a letter, “then Land’s forces will not be at the project site.”

Hunt sent that letter, dated Friday, to H.G. Reynolds Company Inc. of Aiken. Land Construction is a subcontractor for H.G. Reynolds, according to project manager Larry Heim.

Heim said Monday that Land Construction “has been asked to stand by” until he and his company have a better grasp of the alleged violations.

“There seems to be a terrible difference of opinion here,” Heim said. “We are committed to providing cooperation at H.G. Reynolds, and we are unclear as to why investigators believe Land Construction, our subcontractor, is not cooperating.”

Officials with Land Construction could not be reached late Monday after the school system’s letter was released. Heim said a Land Construction crew was told Friday to leave the job site on Chastain Road in Liberty.

The state labor department’s Office of Immigrant Worker Compliance has been investigating work sites in the Pickens County school district since November 2009, after receiving numerous complaints that illegal workers were being hired for construction projects.

The law requires a company to complete a federal employment eligibility verification form for each worker hired. Within five days of hiring a worker, a company must verify the person’s work authorization through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or verify that the worker has a valid South Carolina driver’s license or identification card.

A report issued by the state on Aug. 27 said that since July 1, the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation had found 32 illegal workers employed by four subcontractors on the Pickens County sites. Land Construction of Seneca employed five of those illegal workers, all of whom were fired and reported to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

H.G. Reynolds was found to be compliant, according to the state’s report.

“The school district … has worked very hard to press the importance of compliance with immigration laws in this building program,” Hunt said. “While these efforts have largely been successful, … it is apparent that the seriousness of the district’s intentions in this regard has not been fully appreciated by some of the subcontracting community.”