Employing somebody illegally; i.e., without paying their Social Security monthly quota, is profitable, until you’re caught, and a sure way of getting caught is if the illegal worker has an accident requiring medical attention. The same as two people being involved in a road accident might agree to ‘settle’ without involving the insurance companies, the first reaction of the employer is get the person treated without involving a public hospital. The following article is just how wrong things can go…

One builder in Carratraca, Málaga decided to hire a Romanian worker in the construction of a house. Nothing was put in writing and Social Security was kept out of the loop. Everything was going wonderfully for the boss until the said worker fell off a section of scaffolding and hit the ground two metres below. He didn’t suffer any life threatening inuries, but one of his feet was seriously bent and buckled.The man needed five operations to sort it out.

The boss decided to take the man to a private hospital and foot the bill (around 3,000 euros), on condition that the worker denied ever having worked for him.

It’s not clear how it all came to light – the incident occurred in May 2006 – but the result, last week, was that the boss received a 1-year suspended sentence and a fine of 3,600 euros, meaning that it would have worked out much, much cheaper to have paid the man’s Social Security payments from the beginning, but how was he to know that the scaffolding had been badly erected and that the Romanian was not a levitation-capable Buddhist prior to moving to Spain.

(News: Carratraca, Malaga, Andalucia)