Officials at AccuStaff, the Jacksonville, Fla., firm accused of hiring illegal aliens to work for a West Chester packager, defended company practices Friday and said they may have been duped by phony Social Security cards.
The firm, hired to find workers for Chesapeake Display and Packaging Co., has launched a probe into whether illegal aliens and children were hired to fill store displays and pack consumer goods.
''This last week has been full of surprises. I don't know that there were 12- or 13-year-olds hired,'' said Marc Mayo, senior vice president of AccuStaff. ''We are investigating and an internal audit is in progress.
''We have never been fined for violating immigration and naturalization or child labor laws. If there was an error in our hiring processes, we'll make it right. But I don't know an error was made.''
AccuStaff, which specializes in temporary and long-term staffing, has offices in 45 states and three nations and distributed 400,000 W-2 tax forms last year for part- and full-time employees, he said.
''People come up with realistic counterfeit documents, and if someone hands us a fraudulent card it's not always easy to realize if the card is false or not,'' Mr. Mayo said.
The company had revenues of $1.4 billion in 1996 - with 44 percent of those revenues coming from its commercial staffing division - and hopes to exceed $2 billion in revenues in 1997, he said.
He refused to comment on charges leveled Thursday by Chesapeake corporate leaders that AccuStaff was to blame for the children and alleged illegal aliens found working at the packaging company.
MIDWEST SEEING MORE MIGRANTS
HISPANICS HERE A LONG TIME, BUT FEW NOTICED Krista Ramsey column
Previous stories
FIRM FACES U.S. PROBE; TAX DEAL UNDER FIRE August 8, 1997
53 JUVENILES, 29 OTHERS IN RAID FREED August 8, 1997
LOWER PRICE HILL DRAWS IMMIGRANTS August 7, 1997
FEDS ARREST 117 WORKERS AS ILLEGALS August 7, 1997
