As Promontory gears up for its busy golf season, 25 of their 170 employees were let go for not possessing the correct right to wrok documents. KPCW's Leslie Thatcher has more.
Promontory general manger Robin Milne says the loss is huge and the human drama devastating. She says after a routine Social Security audit, the company had to let go of some long term, valued employees. The audit she says showed some discrepancies with paperwork that employees had provided.
The audits she says are done annually and she’s not sure why the irregularities came to light this year and not before – especially since many of the employees had been with the company for years.
She says the company owner Francis Najafi, an immigrant himself, took the news hard. Milne says he appreciates the hard work and loyalty of his staff and many of them she says were valued employees with years of excellent service. Najafi provided them with generous severance pay and Milne says they are also working with some employees to see if they can give them their jobs back.
The resort is now rushing to fill the vacant positions, with existing staff.
For the future she says the company may have to look at providing its own employee housing, given the challenges of service industry wages and the lack of affordable housing in town.
While KPCW has heard of similar enforcement actions being taken, we haven’t been able to confirm any. We reached out to other businesses that hire immigrants to staff its workforce. Park City Municipal spokesperson Linda Jager said the city has not been impacted by employment audits and complies with all applicable verification requirements for employment.
A human resource staff member at the Montage Deer Valley said she couldn’t comment – and that the public relations department who would be authorized to say something, couldn’t, since the luxury hotel is closed for three weeks. Stein Eriksen Lodge didn’t return our phone call. On its website, the private Glenwild Golf course says it participates in the federal E-Verify program and advises would be applicants that they will provide the Social Security Administration and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each new employee's Form I-9 to confirm work authorization.
Form I-9 is used to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the US. Both employees and employers must complete the form and employees must attest to his or her employment authorization.
