State to check forms affirming worker status under new rule

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment will soon begin checking to see if employers are complying with a new state law that requires them to declare in writing that they have not knowingly hired an illegal worker. Hefty fines may be levied against them if they aren’t.

House Bill 06S-1017, approved by the Colorado legislature and signed into law by former Gov. Bill Owens last year, went into effect Jan. 1. It mandates employers fill out an “Affirmation of Legal Work Status” form within 20 days of each new hire.

Employers must sign the form after indicating they have examined the new employee’s legal work status and that they have “not knowingly hired an unauthorized alien,” and retain it for inspection.

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Peter Wingate, deputy director of the department’s Division of Labor, said the emphasis in the first months has been on educating employers.

“What we’re currently doing, first and foremost, is focusing on the educational aspect and telling employers what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said.

Wingate said the division recently added new information about the law to its Web site, www.coworkforce.com/lab. Also included is a copy of the act passed by the legislature, answers to frequently asked questions, a fact sheet, a copy of the form to be filled out and a complaint form to send to the division if someone believes an employer is not fulfilling the law’s requirements.

Wingate said the division is also considering mailing out information to employers as a way to heighten awareness.

But Wingate said the division is not standing still on enforcing the law, which includes fines of between $5,000 and $25,000 for employers who are in violation. “We’re receiving calls and inquiries and we’re moving forward on those,” he said.

But so far no fines have been levied, he said.

Illegal immigration response

The bill was passed in a special session last year to respond to a growing demand to curb the influx of illegal workers to the state. Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the intent was to get employers to look harder at each person they hire.

“It allows Colorado to have the Department of Labor to inspect the documents and to make sure (employers) are keeping the documents,” he said.

Bacon said he’s not heard any complaints from the business community since the law went into effect. He said the bill was never intended to make employers become verifiers of employee information.

“I hope that the enforcement of the bill takes into consideration that (employers) aren’t in the business of verifying the authenticity of anything,” he said. “It was mostly just to have the documents.”

Bacon said he hopes employers will realize that the bill is another attempt by the government – this time the state – to make sure people hired for jobs in Colorado are legally qualified to be employed.

“I would imagine 90 percent of (employers) were already doing this,” he said. “As a legislature we were charged with attempting to verify that people doing work in the state were hiring legal workers, and use the power of the state to get at the bad actors and not hurt those that were following the law.”

Bacon said time will tell if that’s the case. “I hope we’ve come up with something that’s reasonable for employers to work with,” he said.

Impact of law doubted

Sarah MacQuiddy, president of the Greeley Chamber of Commerce, said she doesn’t believe the new law was needed. MacQuiddy said employers have been required since 1986 to fill out the federal I-9 document for each employee and gather copies of supporting citizenship documents. The intent of that process was also to make sure only legal workers are hired.

“This, to me, is such a non-issue because everyone I know was already doing it,” she said. “It’s just one more piece of paper that you have to get signed. I don’t see it changing things at all.”

From an employer’s perspective, MacQuiddy said it won’t make their lives any easier or guarantee they’re hiring only legal workers.

“I can’t imagine that signing your name to a document makes a difference,” she said. “I wouldn’t know if someone handed me a false driver’s license or Social Security card. Is this going to curb the problem? I don’t think so.”

But unlike the federal I-9 process, which only threatens a “penalty of perjury” for those employers who don’t observe its requirements, the new state law has teeth in the form of fines that could be levied against violators.

Division of Labor Deputy Director Wingate said his office – which has only four people assigned to enforce the law statewide – will pursue violators on a complaint basis. He said he doesn’t expect the law to result in rounding up many illegals.

“The law is completely (focused) on the employer’s side, so we aren’t looking to capture unauthorized aliens or illegals,” he said.