Arlington Residents Protest DC Water Contractor Use of Immigration Status Against Workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Former employees of Corinthian Contractors, local residents, and area immigration groups will rally tomorrow to demand the Arlington-based company stop using unlawful questioning into workers’ immigration status to quell attempts by employees to stand up for themselves. In mid-December, a day after a group of Corinthian workers demanded legally required minimum wages for their work on a DC Water project, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested the workers. Corinthian then announced that it had suddenly discovered that the I-9s of the entire workforce needed to be immediately “re-verified” and during this process fired almost half of the workers working on DC Water projects, most of whom had signed the letter to Corinthian. “These workers have had their lives torn apart, simply because of the ruthlessness of a contractor who was offended that workers would try to hold him accountable to pay legally required wages,” says Steve Lanning of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition, which has been supporting the workers. “Tomorrow, these workers and their supporters will tell Corinthian that they cannot be intimidated out of their rights.”