Wage Theft in Downtown Worcester AGAIN! (MA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

15 Jan, 2019
in Uncategorized by Kevin

This just isn’t right. Why are we seeing wage theft in downtown Worcester AGAIN! Worcester is in a renaissance we’re told, but many of the carpenters who are building the new Worcester continue to be victims of illegal business practices on high profile projects.

The stolen wages occurred at the historic Central Building at 332 Main St. This is a publicly supported project that has millions of dollars in public assistance. A partial listing of funding as recorded by the Worcester Telegram and Gazette begins, “MassHousing is providing a $3.7 million permanent loan and $1.4 million in workforce housing funding from the agency’s $100 million Workforce Housing Initiative. The project also received approximately $12 million through an allocation of federal and state low-income housing tax credits by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, more than $3 million in direct affordable housing funding from DHCD, $1.2 million in HOME funds from Worcester, and approximately $5.3 million through allocations of federal and state historic tax credits.” (Worcester T&G – $5.1M financing deal for Central Building in Worcester 5/7/2016)

With this much public resources and taxpayer dollars you would expect this to be an exemplary project.

Sadly, Dellbrook Construction hired Nayelie Drywall, which is registered both as a Hartford, CT or Holyoke, MA subcontractor. Nayelie then stole wages from two non-union carpenters. After not receiving the money they were owed, these two Latino non-union carpenters came forward to the Carpenters Union for help.

“Worcester needs to stay vigilant in efforts to prevent wage theft. We’re willing to take on the Dellbrooks and Nayelie Drywall, but we’re hoping the Worcester City Council can pass a wage theft ordinance to help end the exploitation of workers in our City.”
Dave Minasian, Business Agent – Carpenters Local 336

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Singleton Bill to Help Strengthen Prevailing Wage Clears Senate (NJ)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

December 17, 2018, 5:42 pm

TRENTON – Legislation sponsored by Senator Troy Singleton, which would allow the issuing of stop-work orders for failure to pay the prevailing wage, cleared the Senate today.

“Before all else, we must protect the rights of the men and women who are working hard each and every day to earn a decent and fair living,” said Senator Singleton (D-Burlington). “New Jersey has set a high standard for how we treat our workers, and if you contract with the state on public works projects, you must be prepared to abide by that standard.”

The bill, S-2557, would permit the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to issue a stop-work order against an employer upon determining an employer has paid a worker less than the prevailing wage.

The stop-work order would apply to every site where the violation continues to occur. It could only be lifted by the commissioner if the department finds the employer has agreed to pay future wages at the required rate, return any back-wages owed to workers and pay any penalty assessed by the department. The commissioner may also require the employer to file periodic reports for two years certifying its compliance with the prevailing wage law as a condition of lifting the order.

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(View PDF Copy of Bill)

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New Brunswick to Strengthen ‘Wage Theft’ Law (NJ)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By TOM HAYDON
January 22, 2019 at 1:23 PM

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – City business owners who fail to pay employees the wages they earn will face increased scrutiny and possible suspension of their operating licenses under a revised ordinance slated to be passed next month.

The ordinance is aimed at “wage theft,” when employers pay workers less than they are owed. Usually, the workers are day laborers and part-time employees, often at restaurants and landscaping companies. Many times the workers are undocumented.

New Brunswick passed an ordinance four years ago to address the problem – and has recouped thousands of dollars workers were not paid. Under that local law, any company facing a complaint from the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development for failure to pay wages can be denied a renewal of a city operating license.

The company is not permitted to operate until the outstanding payment is resolved.

However, last September, residents from the city’s Unity Square Community Center complained to the city council that the ordinance fails to go far enough. If a company is cited by the state for not coughing up when they owe workers, the city ordinance does not take effect until that company must re-apply for its annual operating license.
That would change under the revised ordinance now before city council.

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Developers Would Provide Construction Workers with Prevailing Wage and Benefits on Government Subsidized Projects under Legislation Proposed by Council Member Ben Kallos (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

New York, NY – Affordable housing and economic development projects receiving city subsidies would be required to pay workers a prevailing wage and provide training in the classroom and on the job through apprenticeship coupled with transparency, under legislation introduced by Council Member Ben Kallos.

Construction-related injuries and deaths continued to rise for the fifth straight year to 744 injuries and 16 deaths in fiscal year 2018, approximately triple the 212 injuries and 6 deaths in fiscal year 2014 according to the Mayor’s Management Report, as reported by City and State. Over the past fiscal year, when incidents further increased by 20%, Local Law 78 of 2017 authored by Council Member Ben Kallos was implemented forcing developers to report of construction-related injuries and fatalities with new minimum fines of $2,500 for failure to report. The Local Law 78 reports have been available on a monthly basis since June 2018 from the DOB.

In 2018, a construction worker earning the minimum wage of $11.10 an hour, working full time for 35 hours a week for 52 weeks, could only bring home $20,202 a year. This year’s increase to $15 an hour in New York City would increase this to $27,300 a year. Construction workers earning the minimum wage while building affordable housing would need access to units set at 30% of Area Median Income (AMI) deemed as extremely Low-Income, the lowest band possible. While construction workers on many affordable projects earn the minimum wage, many affordable housing projects do not even offer affordable housing at such extremely low-income, only making the crisis worse.

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Workers’ Center and ILR to host panel on wage theft in the new economy (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

JANUARY 18, 2019
BY COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

ITHACA, N.Y. – The Tompkins County Workers’ Center handles between 80 and 100 cases of wage theft every year, and that’s scratching the surface of what’s going on just in our community. Employers steal more from their workers than the amount of dollars involved in bank robberies, burglaries, and all other thefts in the U.S. combined. TCWC has helped workers win wage theft judgments of more than $1.35 million, on top of organizing with workers to confront the wage theft in their workplaces directly.

Join us in downtown Ithaca on Tuesday, Feb. 5, to learn more about how companies are finding new ways to exploit workers to reduce costs, including engaging in the age-old practice of wage theft.

Hear from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and NY Department of Labor on their work to prosecute wage thieves on criminal charges. Hear from the Tompkins County DA on local enforcement, and experts and advocates on their eye-opening findings in the field.

Fighting Wage Theft: New Tools for a New Economy

6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019

The First Unitarian Society of Ithaca, 306 N. Aurora St. (corner of N. Aurora and Buffalo Streets).

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Funding stream sought for workforce training (OR)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By: Josh Kulla
January 22, 2019 1:50 pm

There’s no end in sight to the shortage of skilled tradespeople in the construction industry. That, in short, is motivating supporters of Senate Bill 82 in the Oregon Legislature’s 2019 session. It would direct the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to establish a new program that would provide supportive services for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs throughout the state. The program would be funded by a pass-through fee attached to certain public works projects subject to prevailing wage rates.

Kelly Kupcak, executive director of Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., worked with representatives of other pre-apprentice groups to help craft the bill. While with the Chicago Women in Trades, Kupcak in 2006 helped push for the passage of similar legislation supporting pre-apprenticeships for women and other disadvantaged groups by linking funding for training in a larger infrastructure bill.

“In Illinois they were able to get enough support from the state Legislature and governor’s office to institute a set-aside from capital improvement projects for pre-apprenticeships,” Kupcak said. “There is this ongoing demand for skilled labor, and report after report that says we can’t meet that demand.”

In some ways, SB 82 is quite similar to the Illinois model. But SB 82 also offers a wide range of support for people receiving training. This includes assistance with the cost of transportation, lodging, child care, job supplies and equipment, and even housing stabilization services.

“We had suggested this is an opportunity to have an assurance of a pool of dollars that would ebb and flow based on demand,” Kupcak said. “If the state has a lot of capital projects on the books, there is an obvious need and a funding stream to get them in. In a lot of ways the model is simple, but it makes sense.”

Money from the pass-through fee would go into a new State Apprenticeship and Training Supportive Services Fund. From there, money would be disbursed to qualifying pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs.

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Report: Construction Contractors Cheating Workers, Taxpayers (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By John Nichols
JANUARY 7, 2019

January 14, 2019

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Unscrupulous contractors in southeast Pennsylvania routinely are violating labor laws and victimizing customers, including state and local government, according to a new report.

The report from the Keystone Research Center found many contractors in the regional Philadelphia construction industry are in a race to the bottom.

Stephen Herzenberg, author of the report, calls that “destructive competition” – cutting costs by misclassifying workers as independent contractors, cheating them out of overtime pay, investing little in worker skills and in some cases operating unsafely.

“When construction contractors and subcontractors compete by violating the law, wage theft, threatening workers’ health and safety, in the end nobody else wins,” he states.

The report says imposing stiffer penalties for labor law violations and directing more resources to enforcement agencies would help safeguard workers, law abiding contractors and taxpayers.

Herzenburg points out that effective enforcement can pay for itself by directing revenue from fines and penalties to enforcement agencies, and it can change the current landscape of the construction industry.

(Visit the Keystone Research Center Website)

(View PDF copy of Study – Illegal Labor Practices in the Philadelphia Regional Construction Industry: An Assessment and Action Plan)

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Illegal Labor Practices in the Philadelphia Regional Construction Industry: An Assessment and Action Plan (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Authors: Russell Ormiston, Stephen Herzenberg
Publication Date: January 11, 2019

This brief, buttressed by the companion national literature review by Professor Russell Ormiston of Allegheny College, presents multiple sources of complementary evidence that point to a single, simple conclusion: US and Pennsylvania labor law and labor standards are routinely violated by many contractors in the Southeast Pennsylvania regional construction industry. These violations threaten to transform growing shares of the construction sector-an industry that still provides significant numbers of well-paid jobs to highly skilled non-college workers-into low-wage, low-skill jobs, further undermining the region’s middle class and increasing already-gaping inequality.

Labor standards violations victimize workers and their families, taxpayers, law-abiding contractors, and construction customers including public sector entities.

* Workers get cheated of the pay they have earned and need to support their family.

* Local businesses suffer because lower-wage workers, some from outside the region, consume less.

* Taxpayers lose because worker victims of wage theft pay less in taxes. Taxpayers also lose in some cases because irresponsible contractors win public contracts awarded to low bidders and then use “change orders” to increase project cost beyond the original bid.

* As well as losing income, workers and their families may suffer because of injuries suffered on the job. Such injuries are more common among contractors who violate labor standards and, in some cases, rely on informal labor markets essentially outside the purview of labor law.

* Law-abiding contractors lose business and profits-and pay higher unemployment insurance taxes and workers compensation premiums-because their competitors underpay. Law-abiding contractors also face pressure to begin violating standards and cheating workers themselves-in a potential “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” downward spiral that spreads destructive competition.

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(Read Full PDF Report)

Council passes resolution to examine construction industry fraud (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Ashley Murray
December 27, 2018

Allegations of widespread fraud in the construction industry led Pittsburgh City Council on Thursday to vote 8-0 to create a new task force, but there wasn’t unanimity on the nature and degree of the problem.

“Basically we know that this activity is happening and we’re losing tax revenue from it,” said the bill’s sponsor, councilman Corey O’Connor, though he did not have specific figures.

The resolution, co-sponsored by councilwoman Darlene Harris, directs the mayor to convene representatives from council, and the offices of the city controller, Allegheny County district attorney, as well as trade unions and the state’s Department of Labor and Industry. It would explore tax fraud – sometimes referred to as paying people under the table – and other “unfair” practices within the city’s construction industry.

Past approaches to construction industry fraud – and even some recent pronouncements by advocates for the task force – have referenced undocumented workers. Thursday, though, backers emphasized that the bill isn’t about immigration.

Members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters gathered in Council Chambers Thursday to support the bill’s passing.

“We have people getting paid cash on the job sites, and that’s not fair,” said Steve Mazza, representative for the Keystone Mountain Lakes Regional Council of Carpenters, based in Collier. “I have to pay taxes. Everybody should be paying taxes. Why is that being unchecked?”

Mr. Mazza’s union claims that Pennsylvania has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes because of industry fraud, though it did not detail that figure Thursday.
The scope of loss for the city is unclear.

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Mayor Kenney Signs Philadelphia Fair Workweek and Minimum Wage Bills Into Law (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

The National Law Review
Thursday, December 27, 2018

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed two bills last week that provide affected employees in the City with more scheduling certainty and higher wages.

The first bill, the Fair Workweek Employment Standards Ordinance, requires employers with at least 250 employees and 30 locations worldwide in the retail, food services, and hospitality industries to provide their employees with more certainty regarding their work schedules, among other reforms. For more information on the Fair
Workweek Ordinance, please see Ballard Spahr’s prior alert.

The Philadelphia Minimum Wage Bill, which amends the 21st Century Minimum Wage Standard Ordinance, is much broader and will increase the minimum wage for all City employees, contractors, and subcontractors beginning next summer.

Starting July 1, 2019, the wage bill will gradually raise the minimum wage from the current $12.20 an hour to $13.25. The wage will increase to $13.75 an hour on July 1, 2020, $14.25 an hour on July 1, 2021, and $15.00 on July 1, 2022. After that, the minimum wage standard will continue to rise based on annual consumer price index adjustments.

The increased minimum wage will apply to all City employees and to employees of covered employers, including those that are recipients of City concessions, franchises, and leases, as well as recipients of City financial aid. Financial aid recipients include all persons or entities that receive direct City assistance of more than $100,000 in any 12-month period. City financial aid recipients must comply with minimum wage increase requirements for five years after their receipt of financial aid. Benefits incidental to City policies, regulations, ordinances, or charter provisions are not considered City financial aid.

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