 SUPREME COURT LIMITS REMEDIES FOR WRONGFULLY TERMINATED UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS
This week the Supreme Court issued a decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board. While it may seem unusual for a case involving labor law to be covered in an immigration newsletter, labor and immigration law are, in some areas, quite closely connected.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was created in the 1930s to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This law guarantees certain rights to those who work in the US. Among the law’s provisions is one making it unlawful for an employer to fire an employee for engaging in union activities. This provision has long been interpreted as providing protection for all workers, regardless of their immigration status. One of the traditional remedies for wrongful termination has been the worker’s reinstatement and the award of backpay for the time unemployed.
In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed. This law, among many other things, for the first time made employers responsible for ensuring that they hired only workers who were legally authorized to be employed in the US. This law had a significant impact on the application of the NLRA to undocumented workers, and in this case, the Supreme Court issued its first decision regarding that impact.
The case arose after Hoffman fired Jose Castro and several other employees who were involved in an effort to unionize the workplace were fired. The NLRB ruled that Castro had been wrongfully terminated, and ordered that the employees be rehired and given backpay. At a compliance hearing, Castro admitted that he was working without INS authorization, and an administrative law judge ruled that the reinstatement and backpay order could not apply to him because it would conflict with IRCA. The NLRB later reversed this ruling, finding that providing undocumented workers with the same labor protections and remedies as other workers furthered the goal of preventing undocumented immigration. This position was upheld by an appellate court, and Hoffman appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court found that awarding backpay to an undocumented immigrant is counter to the policies and goals of IRCA, and that because of that, the NLRB cannot order awards of backpay to undocumented immigrants. Where the NLRB focused on using backpay as a way to make it no more favorable for employers to hire undocumented immigrants (assuming that they could fire them for union activities without facing NLRA sanctions), the Supreme Court focused on the fact that in obtaining employment, undocumented immigrants violate federal law.
The opinion is available online at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/01pdf/00-1595.pdf.
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