In California, the labor commissioner's office said it would continue to investigate claims without regard to immigration status. However, commission attorney Miles Locker noted if employers raise the question of an employee's legal standing, it could affect the state's ability to collect back pay in certain cases.
More troubling, said worker advocates, is the widespread belief among illegal immigrants that they no longer are protected under state and federal labor laws, which has discouraged them from filing complaints.

"We've been getting a lot of panicky phone calls," said Liz Sunwoo, an outreach worker with the Korean Immigrant Workers Assn. "They're afraid if they step forward now, they'll be fired."
That misunderstanding also has led many to drop contract grievances and walk away from union-organizing campaigns, which increasingly are targeting immigrant workers, said several union activists. Yet several organizers in heavily immigrant industries said the undocumented have long understood they take greater risks when asserting their rights.

"We don't see it affecting our organizing efforts," said Mike Garcia, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1877, a statewide janitors' organization based in Los Angeles. "There are very few instances where we've won back pay awards anyway.... What's more concerning to us is the overall increase of immigrant hysteria that seems to be developing in this country."

Dionisio Gonzalez, an organizer with the United Steelworkers Union who filed the original case against Hoffman in 1989, said the ruling undoubtedly will make it harder to persuade workers to join a union, which he said could affect all workers regardless of status.
"It makes it real difficult to convince someone to sign a union card," Gonzalez said. "At Hoffman, I told them they were protected under the law. I guess I was wrong."