Employers

In a final drive to toughen immigration enforcement, the Bush administration will again try to institute a system that would force employers to fire workers who have discrepancies in their Social Security data. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that he would ask a federal judge to lift an injunction imposed against the "no-match" rule after foes including the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued to stop it last year.

Employers are dramatically shifting healthcare costs onto workers, so much so that the average annual deductible for an individual surpassed $1,000 for the first time this year, according to a new study. Millions of workers -- whether employed by small, medium or large companies -- must now pay an average of $1,001 out of their own pockets before their health insurance coverage begins paying a share of the expenses. That's up 17% from $859 last year.

In a rare criminal prosecution of an employer in California, two executives of a fence building company were sentenced in federal court in San Diego on Wednesday to three years' probation for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, officials said. U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz also sentenced Melvin Kay, president of the Riverside-based Golden State Fence Co.

IN an ironic twist, the company hired by the U.S. government in 1999 to help build a fence along the Mexican border to curb the flow of undocumented workers itself recently ran afoul of immigration laws. In March, two senior executives of Golden State Fence Co. of Riverside were each sentenced to six months of home confinement and fined a combined $300,000 for employing scores of illegal workers. Golden State Fence, which declined to talk about the case, also paid a $4.

Nearly two-thirds of employers that offer traditional pensions have closed their plans to new hires or frozen them for all employees, or plan to do so in the next two years, according to a study released Tuesday. The latest numbers show an acceleration in the decline of pensions -- retirement plans in which employers, instead of employees, are responsible for investing retirement money and providing benefits.

With the failure of immigration legislation in Congress this year, federal officials are planning a new crackdown on illegal immigrants that would force businesses to fire them or face stiff penalties. But the effort also could cause serious headaches for millions of U.S. citizens. In the coming days, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue a rule outlining how businesses must respond when they receive notice that there are discrepancies in a worker's tax records.

If the federal government follows through with its planned crackdown on illegal hiring, Los Angeles garment manufacturer Mike Lee said he will be forced to take on a new role. "All of a sudden they want the employers to act as policemen," said Lee, former president of the Korean Apparel Manufacturers Assn. "I am a businessman." The immigration regulations announced Friday could hinder industries throughout California and the nation, including agriculture, hospitality and landscaping.

A man with cancer whose boss threw away his disability benefits paperwork and a help-desk employee who was required to remain at his desk during an office fire were declared the winners of the second annual AFL-CIO My Bad Boss contest Tuesday. The cancer patient, using the pseudonym Pete Yonski, was the "People's Choice" Grand Prize winner and will receive a weeklong condo vacation and $1,000 toward airfare.

A coalition of labor and immigrant rights groups sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday to block the agency's planned crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, contends that the rules would lead to mass firings of workers who are U.S. citizens and to discrimination against employees who look or sound foreign. It also names the Social Security Administration as a defendant.

A federal judge in San Francisco on Friday temporarily blocked the U.S. government from starting its planned crackdown against employers who hired undocumented immigrant workers. U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Social Security Administration from sending so-called no-match letters to companies whose employees' names do not match the Social Security numbers they used when they applied for their jobs.