Wage Theft Hotline Hits Home With California Port Drivers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

BY JOHNNY MAGDALENO
OCTOBER 31, 2016

Reyes Castellano has been driving cargo in and out of the Long Beach, California, port for 15 years. The 58-year-old has always had to put a big chunk of his paycheck toward covering repair and maintenance costs for his vehicle, but ever since K&R Transportation, the company he works for as an independent contractor, asked drivers to switch out their diesel trucks for ones powered by clean diesel and natural gas, his expenses have gone through the roof.

“Since I’ve had that truck I’ve spent about $30,000 in repairs,” says Reyes, who’s listed as the owner-operator of his vehicle. Last year, he says he made $74,000, but after deducting all the expenses he put into his work, he brought home $24,000. “Filter gets warped, turbo goes out, repaired the transmission a couple of times – they get so hot in there, like there’s no insulation or nothing.”

But what gets him the most is that he’ll spend anywhere from eight to 10 hours some days just waiting for companies at the port to ready their shipments. That’s time on the job that he’s not getting paid for, and that’s why he and a few dozen other drivers decided to go on a two-day strike at ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles on October 25.

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California Commissioner Awards $34.9M to Fight Workers’ Comp Fraud

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By: Andrew Polk
October 13, 2016

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones today announced he has awarded $34.9 million in grants to 37 district attorney offices representing 44 counties across California to combat workers’ compensation insurance fraud.

The grants, funded through employer assessments, support law enforcement efforts in investigating and prosecuting workers’ compensation insurance fraud.

Grant funding is based on assessments from California insured and self-insured employers, and district attorneys apply for workers’ comp fraud grant funds.

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Justice for Irvine employees: Owner gets jail for shorting pay

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POSTED BY KEN STONE
OCTOBER 7, 2016

The owner of an Irvine-based heating and air conditioning company was sentenced Friday to a year in jail and five years of formal probation for failing to pay employees a prevailing wage on public works projects and pocketing the difference.

Shamseddin Hashemi-Mousavi, who was convicted exactly a year ago Friday, could have faced up to 26 years and eight months in prison.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg prohibited him from working on any public works contracts through the end of his probation, according to Deputy District Attorney Donde McCament.

Hashemi-Mousavi placed $58,000 in a trust fund to be used to pay for restitution at a later date, McCament said. Bromberg will hold a hearing later to determine what restitution the defendant owes.

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Red Light Camera Company Sued Again For Prevailing Wage Violation

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Former American Traffic Solutions electrician says he was cheated out of over $75,000 in wages while working on red light cameras.

1/4/2017
Courtesy of the Newspaper.com

Another former traffic camera company employee says he has been shortchanged by American Traffic Solutions (ATS). In a new federal lawsuit, George A. Felix alleges the traffic camera vendor forced him to work more than eight hours per day without being paid overtime, and at a rate far below that required under California law.

Felix worked as an electrician for ATS in California from 2009 to 2014. He earned between $20 and $23 per hour setting up and maintaining red light cameras in various municipalities across the state. Felix does not say exactly how much money he believes he is owed, but ATS lawyers estimated the likely total to be in excess of $75,000.

“ATS failed to properly compensate [Felix] for working off-the-clock and overtime,” Richard E. Donahoo, attorney for Felix, wrote in his complaint. “[Felix] did not receive compensation for all hours worked over eight per day or forty per week at the required overtime rate.”

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NLRB Memo Lays Out Misclassification Theory

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August 30, 2016
By Lawrence E. Dubé

Aug. 29 – The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel released a legal memorandum explaining his theory that an employer committed an unfair labor practice by misclassifying employee drivers as independent contractors (Pac. 9 Transp., Inc. , NLRB Div. of Advice, No. 21-CA-150875, 12/18/15 [released 8/26/16]).

The unfair labor practice theory involving worker misclassification hasn’t previously been tested before the NLRB or the courts, but the memorandum shows that’s the approach the general counsel will likely follow in other independent contractor disputes.

In the memorandum released Aug. 26, the NLRB’s Division of Advice wrote that by misinforming drivers they were independent contractors, Pacific 9 Transportation Inc. interfered with the drivers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act to organize or engage in concerted activity for their mutual aid or protection.

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Gov. Brown Signs Senator Mendoza Bill to Prevent Wage Theft from California Workers

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By Christopher Simmons
July 26, 2016

SACRAMENTO, Calif. /California Newswire/ – A measure, SB 1342, authored by Calif. Senator Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) that would protect workers by paving the way for a statewide mechanism at the local level to fight wage theft, was signed by Governor Brown today. The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2017.

“I thank Governor Brown for signing SB 1342,” said Senator Tony Mendoza. “This bill protects hard-working Californians by clarifying the ability of cities and counties to investigate non-compliance with local wage laws.”

“As cities and counties in California move to raise the minimum wage, we must ensure that our low-wage workers, who already face many challenges, receive the pay that they have earned,” added Senator Tony Mendoza.

Fifteen cities in California have passed minimum wage ordinances going beyond the State-mandated $10 an hour. In many cases however, employers do not obey these laws. For example, San Francisco City and County have passed ordinances to raise the local minimum wage to $12.25 an hour. Additionally, they have set a precedent by creating an Office of Labor Standards Enforcement to uphold these laws and address the shortfall in local wage enforcement.

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What good is affordable housing if the people who build aren’t paid decently?

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July 27, 2016
Kevin Duncan, Pueblo, Colo.
The writer is a professor of economics at Colorado State University-Pueblo.

To the editor: Like climate change, construction prevailing wage standards have been studied and an academic consensus exists, but myths persist. (“Affordable housing at an impasse,” editorial, July 22)

Peer-reviewed economists have found that prevailing wages produce more local, middle-class job opportunities and less spending on fuels, materials and public assistance for blue-collar construction workers. They do not significantly raise total development budgets.

In California, labor makes up just 20% of total construction project costs. Any savings from exploitative working conditions are offset by lower productivity on the job site.

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Berkeley Makes History With Wage Theft Ordinance

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BY JOHNNY MAGDALENO
AUGUST 16, 2016

Last year, at the start of spring, 21 construction workers were hired by a local contractor to hang drywall for a 79-unit apartment complex in downtown Berkeley, California. The workers spent five months on the project, but when they finally wrapped it up, they still hadn’t received a dime from their employer.

They filed complaints with their local trade unions, which were able to pass the message up to the Labor Enforcement Task Force and Joint Enforcement Strike Force, two coalitions of state and municipal agencies that have appraised $4.2 million worth of unpaid wages in California since 2012. Their investigation led California Labor Commissioner Julie Su to place a lien on the contractor for $60,000, the total amount the workers were owed, three months after they left the job site.

For Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for the wage advocacy nonprofit Smart Cities Prevail, the state’s response marks a turn for the best in what might have been a tragic finish for those workers. But successes like this represent a drop in the bucket when it comes to the hunt for unscrupulous contractors.

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Port Drivers Reach $5 Million Settlement in Misclassification Suit

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July 15, 2016

A class-action lawsuit representing nearly 400 Southern California port truck drivers has resulted in a $5 million settlement agreement with port trucking company group QTS, ending the three-year- long suit.

The lawsuit was brought by the Wage Justice Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles on behalf of Latino and Korean-American port truck drivers who claimed that they had been misclassified as contract workers in order to cheat them out of the wages and benefits granted to full employees.

This is the latest in a longstanding dispute between many port truck drivers serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the port trucking companies who classify drivers as independent contractors. Most recently, Premium Transportation Services filed, blaming its financial troubles on driver misclassification lawsuits and legal costs. QTS was also in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings during the lawsuit.

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City of Berkeley Enacts First of Its Kind Wage Theft Prevention Ordinance

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By Valerie Gotten – Jul 20, 2016

BERKELEY, Calif. /California Newswire/ – Last night, the City of Berkeley approved a first-of-its-kind local ordinance aimed at preventing wage theft on local construction projects, Smart Cities Prevail announced today.

Authored by Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, co-sponsored by a majority of the Council and supported by construction industry trade associations and workers’ rights groups, the measure requires that developers and builders certify that all contractors performing work on large projects have complied with state wage and hour laws as a condition of winning a certificate of occupancy from the city.

“Enforcing wage laws is especially difficult in the construction industry, because unscrupulous contractors who cheat workers in order to win bids on large projects find ways of disappearing after the work is done,” said Smart Cities Prevail Policy Director Scott Littlehale. “By expanding transparency and accountability BEFORE a project is complete, Berkeley has taken an important step towards preventing wage theft and leveling the playing field for honest construction businesses competing for this work.”

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