In a major legal win for immigrant workers, thousands of California construction workers will start receiving checks April 15 to compensate for unpaid wages and other alleged labor violations committed during California's housing boom.

The $8.5 million legal settlement benefits nearly 3,100 former and current workers for several companies that built houses in Southern California, the Central Valley, Central Coast and San Francisco East Bay.

A few workers initiated the complaint in 2006 after approaching a Spanish-speaking attorney, but lawyers say the case grew into one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in California involving mostly Latino construction laborers, including some who are undocumented.

"We hope that this sends a strong message that all workers have rights," said one of the attorneys, Gladys Limon of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Los Angeles office.

The construction settlement isn't the only indication that courts and government agencies are dealing with long-standing allegations of underpaid immigrant workers.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown's office has a new Underground Economy Unit that investigates businesses for suspected wage and workers' compensation abuse and tax fraud.

And in Tulare County – a week after the construction workers' settlement – a Superior Court judge signed off on a nearly $1.28 million settlement for immigrant dairy workers in the Central Valley.

Suits like these help counter fear among undocumented workers – and legal immigrants – who assume they are not covered by the same labor rights as citizens or are intimidated and afraid to assert themselves, Limon said.

Worker's status 'irrelevant'

MALDEF received a rare endorsement for its victory from Minuteman Project leader Jim Gilchrist, who supports strong measures to deport illegal immigrants. "The lawyers are doing the right thing in going after these slave-trading employers," he said.

But federal officials, he suggested, should now look into prosecuting the businesses for hiring illegal immigrants and deport the workers – with the money they're entitled to get.

California civil code specifically states that "for purposes of enforcing state labor and employment laws, a person's immigration status is irrelevant to the issue of liability."

The dairy settlement benefits about 650 workers, and is believed to be the largest class-action back-wage agreement involving California's dairy industry, according to Mark Talamantes of San Francisco, one of the employees' attorneys.

He has handled five cases over the past decade on behalf of immigrant dairy workers. His partner on some of these cases, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, reports that dairy workers often report to their offices with complaints of unpaid overtime.

Oakland attorney Bill Lann Lee, who was President Bill Clinton's chief of civil rights in the Justice Department, was part of the team representing the construction workers.

If illegal immigrants are not included under labor rights, he said, employers could have unbridled license to hire and exploit them.

"As a matter of policy, you do not want to create two classes of workers," Lee said.

If you strip a group of rights, he said, "you create an underclass, and then jobs tend to migrate to that underclass and it affects everyone."

Lee said that during legal proceedings, rival attorneys broached the issue of immigration status, perhaps to try to get workers to back down.

"In the context in which it was raised," Lee said, "I think there was an effort to get plaintiffs to think twice about participating and testifying."

Brown: Employers tempted

Brown, the Democratic attorney general, said there is "a great opportunity for exploitation" among immigrant workers.

"Lower-paid workers are often forgotten," he said.

During the housing boom, he said, competition tempted businesses to gain an edge by cheating vulnerable workers and putting "downward pressure" on wages.

Call Susan Ferriss, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1267.