California Labor Commissioner Citation of General Contractor for Subcontractor’s Wage Theft Affirmed

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

SOURCE California Department of Industrial Relations, California Labor Commissioner’s Office
Jun 29, 2017, 17:32 ET

LOS ANGELES, June 29, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su issued citations of $249,879 against Irvine-based general contractor Deacon Corporation, along with its subcontractor, Lafayette-based Champion Constructions, Inc.

This is the first time that the Labor Commissioner has held a general contractor responsible for wage theft by its subcontractor by issuing citations under AB 1897 (section 2810.3 of the Labor Code), signed by Governor Brown in 2014, which took effect on January 1, 2015.

Champion, a drywall and framing contractor hired by Deacon for the Cambria Hotel construction project in El Segundo, shorted 47 workers. The Champion employees worked an average of 10 hours a day, five days a week and were unpaid for four weeks.

“This case addresses the pervasive problem of wage theft in subcontracted industries,” said Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su. “Businesses at the top of the contracting chain that profit from workplace violations can no longer escape legal liability by hiding behind their subcontractors, even if they did not control the work performed or know about the violations.”

The wage theft came to light after several of Champion’s workers walked off the job on June 16, 2016, and filed wage claims at the Labor Commissioner’s Office in Long Beach for nonpayment of wages.

The Labor Commissioner’s investigation revealed that Champion paid the workers from an account with insufficient funds and then skipped several pay periods for the majority of the workers. Investigators also learned that Champion failed to pay overtime wages to many of the workers, who worked up to 2 hours overtime a day.

The Labor Commissioner’s Office last August issued citations against both Deacon and Champion totaling $279,151 in unpaid overtime and minimum wages, waiting time penalties, rest period premiums and civil penalties for work performed from May 8, 2016 to June 16, 2016. A demand letter was also issued in August for $50,466 to request payment of the contract wages, which is the difference between minimum wage and the wages promised to the workers when contracted for the job.

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The St. Petersburg Wage Theft Ordinance: New Notice and Poster Requirements

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Monday, June 26, 2017

The City of St. Petersburg, Florida, recently amended its wage theft ordinance to require employers to provide pay notice to employees at the time of hire and to display “in a location accessible to all employees” a poster about wage theft. See St. Pete. Code, Chap. 15, Art. III, Sec. 15-40, et seq. These requirements are not yet in effect. As detailed below, the effective date is on hold pending the completion of a memorandum of understanding by the City, which is engaging a “community-based” organization to “implement the purposes of this article.”

The ordinance defines the term “employee” broadly to mean a “natural person who performs work within the geographic boundaries of the City while being employed by an employer . . .” including “a person who performs work that benefits an employer located within the City even though the employee may have performed work outside of the City.” The ordinance excludes “any bona fide independent contractor,” stating that the term “independent contractor” “shall have the same meaning as in the Internal Revenue Code, Fair Labor Standards Act, and implementing federal regulations, administrative interpretations and guidance” (though “independent contractor” is defined differently by the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Labor).

Background

On December 15, 2016, the St. Petersburg City Council passed several amendments to the City’s wage theft ordinance. Under Sec. 15-44, there are three new requirements for employers. Employers must provide a “written notice” to employees at time of hire, including a “template summary” summarizing the employee’s rights (available from the City), written notice of changes in pay, and a poster (available from the City). Sec. 15-44(a)-(d). There is also a $500.00 “per violation” penalty for an employer’s failure to adhere to any part of the ordinance. Sec. 15-44(e). The term “violation” is not defined.

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Construction workers, union seek more protection from wage theft, abuses in Charlotte

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

JUNE 26, 2017 7:45 PM
BY ELY PORTILLO

A group of construction workers and labor organizers told Charlotte City Council on Monday that the city needs to take more steps to ensure the people fueling the building boom aren’t taken advantage of and subjected to unsafe conditions.

At a press conference organized by the AFL-CIO union in front of the Government Center uptown, they asked City Council to establish a task force to study construction workers’ conditions and pass a policy to rate contractors and make them disclose more about their employment practices.

The call for more rules to protect construction workers is tied to a report called “Build a Better South” that highlights wage theft, workers misclassified as independent contractors, lack of benefits and other hardships facing workers in the South’s booming construction industry. The report is a partnership of the Workers Defense Project, Partnership for Working Families, and the University of Illinois.

The report’s authors surveyed almost 1,500 workers in six fast-growing cities – Charlotte, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Miami and Nashville. In Charlotte, they found:

▪ Nearly half – 44 percent – received no benefits at all from their employers, such as sick leave or health insurance.

▪ The industry is largely made up of Latino workers, who comprised 68 percent of those construction workers surveyed in Charlotte.

▪ Only 11 percent had formal training in construction at a vocational school or community college.

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McHenry County Board approves prevailing wage, ending three years of protest votes

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By KEVIN P. CRAVER
June 26, 2017

WOODSTOCK – The McHenry County Board approved the state prevailing wage rates, ending a three-year streak of casting a symbolic protest vote against them.

Board members voted, 19-3, to adopt the wage schedule, which requires local governments to pay workers hired for public construction projects a specific wage set by the Illinois Department of Labor.

Audience members, many of whom were union members and local residents who came to encourage a vote to approve, applauded when the final vote was tallied.

The County Board since 2014 had voted against prevailing wage, while being careful to instruct county staff to follow the law.

Board member Donna Kurtz, R-Crystal Lake, said voting against prevailing wage sends a negative message to the community, and disputed the notion that the wages are responsible for the county’s sky-high property taxes.

“I think in the end, the overall benefits well outweigh the negatives that some may perceive regarding prevailing wage. It’s the right thing to do – we know it’s the law. It’s the right thing to do,” Kurtz said.

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Push for Prevailing Wages at State Transit Hubs Passes Assembly

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By Alyana Alfaro * 06/22/17 5:43pm

The New Jersey General Assembly on Thursday passed legislation requiring that subcontracted Newark Liberty Airport, Hoboken Terminal and Newark Penn Station employees be paid prevailing wages, a move that is estimated to bring wages for those employees up to $17.98 per hour according to the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

The bill, A-4870/S-3226, was sponsored in the Assembly by Democrats including Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) and in the state Senate by Democrats including Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester). It passed the Assembly on Thursday with 51 yes votes, 23 no votes, and one abstention and will now go to the state Senate for consideration. The measure passed without Republican support.

“When you look at Liberty International, it is one of our biggest employers,” said Prieto (D-Hudson) from the Assembly floor prior to the bill being posted for a vote. “When these individuals live near these centers that should be an economic engine for the region, they should be able to be paid fair wage that is put back into the economy.”

The New Jersey minimum wage is currently $8.38 per hour. Subcontracted workers at Newark Airport make $10.20 per hour. Labor groups around the country are pushing for those wages to be boosted to $15 per hour, a figure lower than NJBIA estimates for the prevailing wage bill.

While Democrats in the legislature favor the initiative, the NJBIA says that the sharp wage boost would “substantially increase the costs for business, which will then be passed along to consumers.” While they estimate the $17.98 prevailing wage for these workers under the legislation, NJBIA says that mandated sick leave, health insurance and paid vacation days would have the same effect as boosting the minimum wage to $22.25 an hour. Michele Siekerka, President and CEO of NJBIA, said that by including such “expensive fringe benefits” as part of the legislation, the bill also eliminates collective bargaining and contract negotiation.

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NYC invests $10M to boost minority, women participation in construction

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
Kim Slowey
June 22, 2017

Dive Brief:

  • New York City has created a $10 million fund to assist women- and minority-owned businesses win construction projects, according to Crain’s New York Business.
  • The money will go toward paying for up to $500,000 of surety bonds per contract. City contractors are required to furnish the bonds, which guarantee they will satisfactorily perform work and pay their bills, but they are difficult to obtain for smaller companies without a track record of completed projects.
  • Aside from helping women- and minority-owned firms become successful, New York City building officials said the program will help other contractors who are required to hire a certain percentage of these firms but can’t find enough of them to meet their mandated quotas.

Dive Insight:

The city aims to issue $16 billion worth of contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses by 2025, and the bond assistance program should help it meet that goal.
Considering that federal and state governments spend hundreds of billions on public construction work and typically set aside 5% to 10% for MBEs and WBEs, the potential payoff is substantial. However, many contractors have reported difficulty finding enough qualified firms.

Drivers Strike Against XPO Logistics in Latest Misclassification Fight

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

RYAN ZUMMALLEN
JUNE 19, 2017

Every day Jose Herrera picks up his Kenworth T600 truck from a rented lot in Moreno Valley, Calif., and fights traffic on the 60 Freeway to the office of his employer, XPO Logistics, 70 miles away in Commerce.

The commute puts wear and tear on the vehicle, leads to pricey fuel bills and accelerates the maintenance schedule. But Herrera doesn’t have a choice. XPO, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, doesn’t allow drivers who own their trucks to park overnight at that location, he said.

“You have to spend more money to keep the truck going,” Herrera said.

Herrera was one of about a dozen drivers on a picket line in front of the XPO office Monday. The strike involves more than 150 drivers at XPO’s Commerce location, said Santos Castaneda, an organizer with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is lending support. Drivers also struck at XPO locations in nearby Rancho Dominguez and farther south in San Diego.

It’s the latest effort from drivers to put pressure on shipping companies in the ongoing nationwide dispute over driver claims that they are misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees of the company. Monday’s strike is the 15th at Los Angeles ports in the last four years.

“There has been no impact to customers,” said Erin Kurtz, a spokesperson for XPO.

“We know firsthand that the majority of owner-operators prefer to work as independent contractors, and we will continue to advocate for their right to do so,” XPO said in a statement.

Truckers have filed more than 800 employee misclassification wage claims since 2011 and have been awarded about $40 million over 300 cases, according to the California Labor Commissioner’s office. About 200 cases are still pending, according to the state agency.

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VIDEO: South Bay construction workers demand higher wages, local hiring (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Vince Cestone, KRON and Rob Fladeboe
Updated: May 31, 2017, 4:20 pm

SAN JOSE (KRON) – South Bay construction workers are demanding that developers hire locally and pay fair market wages.

Construction is booming in downtown San Jose. There are several new high rises going up, and while that means more badly needed housing and property taxes, one group is feeling left out of the boom-local construction workers.

Plumbers and pipe fitters from Local Trade Union 393 picketed Wednesday at the construction site of the silvery towers luxury condominium high-rise project going up in downtown San Jose.

They’re upset that the developer of this and other such projects are not hiring local workers, and they’re not paying the prevailing wage.

“It’s bad not just for our workers like the ones here, it’s also bad for the local economy because those workers who are working these jobs are taking their paychecks, going back to Texas or some other place, and they’re spending them there, and we think that’s got to stop,” South Bay Labor Council Executive Officer Ben Field said.

Union labor says “the last straw” was the recent approval of another residential condo project on the site of the former Greyhound bus depot. The developer has agreed to pony up $15 million in park fees and millions more for affordable housing and property taxes.

But the city cannot require the developer to use specific contractors or the payment of prevailing, union-scale wages.

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Illinois legislature passes groundbreaking anti-wage theft bill, measure will help economy, taxpayers, workers and businesses

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

NEWS PROVIDED BY HourVoice
07 Jun, 2017, 14:36 ET

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Illinois legislature has passed groundbreaking legislation (SB1720) to address wage theft in Illinois. Wage theft is estimated to cost American workers over $50 billion per year and news reports have shown Illinois is a very difficult and complex state for workers seeking to recoup stolen wages. The legislation prohibits businesses who violate state law on the payment of wages from receiving taxpayer-funded state contracts for at least five years. SB1720 also increases the penalty for disobeying a court order to pay back wages the court finds to have been stolen from an employee.

“In this time of fiscal crisis, we need to make sure that taxpayer-funded state contracts are only going to companies which treat their employees fairly. The vast majority of Illinois businesses, which play by the rules and do right by their employees, deserve a level playing field. Taxpayers deserve more confidence on how their money is spent. I was proud to support this common-sense measure,” said State Rep. Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) who voted for SB1720.

According to HourVoice, wage theft takes many forms, including: shorting workers on their hours, not paying the minimum wage, and not properly paying overtime. It impacts employees in every region of Illinois – at all wage levels and in a wide array of industries.

“Wage theft is estimated to drain $800 million – $3 billion a year from the Illinois economy,” said State Representative Lisa Hernandez (D-Cicero) who sponsored the measure. “It can also push people below the poverty line and make it harder for working parents to support their children. But when low-income workers get the full pay they have earned, they improve the local and state economy with the dollars they spend.”

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AG: Company failed to pay correct wages at Bresnahan, other public works jobs

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Bresnahan School one of public works projects involved

Staff Reports
July 13, 2017

NEWBURYPORT – A New Hampshire construction company was fined more than $160,000 in restitution and penalties for failing to properly pay employees on nine public works projects, including Bresnahan Elementary School, the attorney general said Wednesday.

Attorney General Maura Healey’s office issued three citations against Northeast Partition Specialties Inc. and owner Fredrick Breth for their failure to pay the prevailing wage, pay overtime and submit accurate certified payroll records for the projects done in 2014-15.

“Companies that do business in Massachusetts must play by the rules,” Healey said. “Prevailing wage laws are intended to ensure a level playing field for companies and provide a real, living wage to workers.”

Northeast is a small, privately held corporation in Manchester, New Hampshire.
The Attorney General’s Office began an investigation of the company after the Fair Labor Division received a complaint from a former employee claiming he was not paid the prevailing wage rate for two public works projects between April 2015 and September 2015.

The investigation found that Northeast failed to pay the proper prevailing wage rate to 27 employees for these public works projects: Staff Sergeant James J. Hill School, Revere; Bresnahan Elementary School, Newburyport; the Acushnet police facility; the Chelmsford Fire Department; Dracut Town Hall; the Sudbury Police Department; Park Avenue Elementary, Webster; West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School; and the Westborough Fire Department.

…

Under the Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law, contractors and subcontractors working on public projects must pay their employees a special minimum wage, which is based on the occupational classification for the type of work the employees perform.

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