From the Ethicist:
A century ago, the great social theorist Max Weber contrasted the ethic of conviction with the ethic of responsibility. The first is about the purity of your intentions and your values: You act in accordance with those values, and if harm results, well, that’s not your concern. The second, though, makes you accountable for the foreseeable consequences of your sterling deeds. Now you’re a person of conscience; you’ve seen something wrong, and you want to set it right. Yet if your ultimate concern is the welfare of these workers, your hesitation is justified. Take it on yourself to represent their interests and blow the whistle on their exploitation, and you could leave them worse off.
In a variety of ways, the current administration in Washington has made the exploitation of undocumented workers easier. Officially, federal labor and employment laws cover all workers regardless of immigration status. But the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website has archived or removed much guidance on worker protections. Previous protections for undocumented workers involved in labor-enforcement investigations have been rescinded or curtailed. Under the law, the I.R.S. is bound by strict privacy rules, and all workers, whatever their immigration status, must pay taxes and are subject to tax withholding. (In 2022, undocumented workers paid nearly a hundred billion dollars in local, state and federal taxes.) Last year, however, the I.R.S. broke with longstanding precedent and agreed to an information-sharing arrangement with ICE. (Federal courts have found that the I.R.S. most likely violated taxpayer-privacy laws, in cases that are proceeding.) When workers fear that tax or wage records could be used against them, they’re more likely to want to stay off the books, which gives exploitative employers more power over them. A similar dynamic can be seen on the ground: After a raid on a Philadelphia carwash, ICE said it was responding to allegations of labor exploitation. Of course, the people arrested were the workers, not the employers.
And if the condo board did rock the boat, who would get washed overboard? Would these men be treated better? Or put out of work, or moved on to a job where nobody would notice whether they were being exploited? If you were able to consult the workers, you might find that preserving their income from a bad job was, in their view, the least harmful outcome right now.
Before you pressure the board or alert the state authorities, then, get in touch with a local immigrant-worker organization or legal-aid employment lawyer. You don’t have to be an expert to behave conscientiously, but — as that ethic of responsibility would urge — you do have to know what you don’t know.