“I guess if you’re drinking, the city’s not that bad” — and other pearls of wisdom from Jacksonville’s Hitler (aka musician Goliath Flores) in this must-see short.

– Posted by Anne Schindler

The Peyton Administration is considering if Turner Construction Company breached its contract by using illegal workers to build the Duval County Courthouse. Meanwhile, local unions and trades people demand the city fire Turner from the $350-million job and hire another company with a promise to use local labor.

Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton’s chief of staff Alan Mosley sent a letter Monday to the city’s General Counsel Rick Mullaney asking his office to review the arrests of illegal workers at the courthouse and to determine if the company’s breached its contract.

There have been 19 illegal workers arrested at or near the site since September. The city required all 240 employees provide additional documentation of their work status beginning three weeks ago, but federal checks showed that 100 of them gave false information.

Mosely also sent a letter to Turner Construction on Monday ordering the company to meet with each of its subcontractors by Friday, Nov. 13, to guarantee every worker on the construction site is properly documented. Mosely told Turner it will be provided the names of 100 employees who gave false information on city forms and instructed Turner to immediately revoke their employee badges.

At the Jacksonville City Council meeting Tuesday night, about six speakers from Jobs for Jacksonville, a coalition of area construction trades, called on the city to break the contract. Several decried the hiring of illegal workers when the city is suffering from double-digit unemployment. “We’re talking about people’s livelihoods here. A hundred people in Jacksonville could have been employed in some of these positions,” said Doug Williams.

— Susan Eastman

As pressure mounts on the city to fire Turner Construction Company as prime contractor on the new Duval County Courthouse, the company’s public relations arm did its bit to quiet the clamor with assurance the company is doing everything it can to keep illegal workers off the job.

A total of 19 undocumented workers have been arrested at or near the construction site since September, including four the Folio Weekly first reported were arrested by Border Patron on Monday morning. Additionally, 100 employees gave the city false information on forms verifying their legal status, the T-U reported Tuesday.

Turner said that in addition to requiring all employees provide extra documentation, it is using the Internet-based system E-Verify to check the status of all employees on the site. E-Verify is a U.S. government site that connects to Social Security and Homeland Security databases. The PR statement didn’t address how a third of employees seemingly slipped by the E-Verify check. The company didn’t respond yet to emailed questions.

Click below to read the complete letter sent to the media Tuesday by Turner Construction Company’s public relations office.

— Susan Eastman

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