<p id="fm0a">The <b id="a_ip">Iowa</b> Senate on Tuesday approved <a id="s78m" href="http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=billinfo&Service=Billbook&frame=1&GA=82&hbill=SF2416">SF 2416</a>, a bill to sharply increase fines on employers violating Iowa state wage laws, crack down on the practice of misclassifying employees as "independent contractors" to evade those laws, and protect workers reporting violations from retaliation.
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<p id="ptcv">As <b id="bf96">Iowa</b> Assistant Majority Leader Joe Bolkcom, the main sponsor of the Iowa bill, wrote in an <a id="t7fu" href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080402/OPINION01/804020347/-1/SPORTS09">editorial published in the <span id="dmix"><i id="f8p:">Des Moines Register</i></span></a>, such an approach is the real solution to the problem of the underground economy, not punitive attacks on undocumented workers:
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<p id="de82">As families in Iowa struggle to make ends meet, they are justified in feeling threatened when they see what were once good jobs turned into low-wage, sweatshop labor... If Iowa were to ensure that all employers paid a decent wage, the attraction of hiring undocumented immigrants would diminish tremendously. Any hiring of undocumented immigrants would then be due to legitimate shortages in the labor supply, not to employers using those workers to illegally undermine wage standards for the rest of the work force.
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<p id="kea:">The Iowa Senate approach contrasts sharply with the punitive approach against immigrants embodied in a competing proposal <a id="g184" title="enacted by the Iowa House" href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080417/NEWS10/804170378/1001/NEWS">approved by the Iowa House</a> this week which would create new state ID requirements for new hires and "employee theft" provisions that would criminalize many immigrant workers.
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