‘Times Are Changing:’ More Women Breaking Into Construction Industry (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Matt Kent
Published February 2, 2019

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – More and more women are shattering the glass ceiling and making their mark in the male dominated construction industry.

“Times are changing. It’s not just a man’s world anymore,” Tanay Matthews, of Brooklyn, told CBS2’s Vanessa Murdock.

Matthews works construction with Local 361.

“I love it, honestly. It’s tough, it’s physically draining, but every day I wake up and I give it my all,” she said.

She said she’s typically the only woman on site.

“I work with about 30 men now. My last job might have been 200,” she said.
According to the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York City, women make up just four percent of the construction unions workforce. But as Matthews said, times are changing.

“Work needs to be done to continue to get the word out to women and young girls that yes, you can do this, this is a career for you,” said Kathleen Culhane, president of Non-Traditional Employment for Women, or NEW.
NEW offers a two-month pre-apprenticeship training program for women of New York City, many of them unemployed or underemployed women of color.

“It’s booming now. I’m so confident now that I’m going to be great, my family is going to be great,” said Shanique Latimer, who’s finishing up her training at NEW.

“My last job I worked at the World Trade Center and I’ve seen all these women – construction women – walking back and forth and they have like this pride on their face, and I wanted that for myself,” Tshura Williams added.

Now, she has the tools. 

(Read More)

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City Looks to Pay Off Undocumented Workers Cheated by Contractors (NY)

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BY JEANINE RAMIREZ 
PUBLISHED 8:14 AM ET JAN. 25, 2019

An asbestos abatement contractor using a Cropsey Avenue address in Brooklyn is one of more than 50 companies banned from doing city-funded work for allegedly underpaying workers.

“The reason these workers are cheated is because there is a feeling with some of these contractors that you can get away with that because the workers are immigrants or they may appear vulnerable,” City Comptroller Scott Stringer said.

Most of the companies did construction work or provided building services under city contracts.

Comptroller Scott Stringer says his office already has recovered $12 million from the companies for 1,500 people who suffered wage theft.

But Stringer says he’s recovered an additional $2.5 million that still must be distributed.Stringer added, “We want to locate the other 1,500 workers who were scammed and lost their wages. They’re out there. They’re out there in our boroughs. They could be around the corner.”

Many of the workers cheated by city contractors are immigrants. Stringer’s office cited the case of one man who eventually left the city and returned to Ecuador, where he was contacted and provided with his back pay.

“We had great news for him, we had the opportunity to send him a lot of checks with a significant amount of money that he received in Ecuador,” said Linda Machuca, Consul General of Ecuador in NY.

The cheated workers receive back pay plus interest, regardless of their immigration status. Immigrant rights groups and consulates are working with the city to locate some of those owed money. Officials say undocumented immigrants who receive wage awards will not be reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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Council bill aims to impose prevailing wage on all city-subsidized projects (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Wage and safety bills would incentivize union labor, but critics fear higher price tag.

By JEFF COLTIN
JANUARY 8, 2019

New York City Councilman Ben Kallos is reintroducing a stalled bill that would require all construction workers to get paid the prevailing wage on any projects getting city subsidies.

Under state law, any project built under a government contract must pay workers the prevailing wage. Kallos’ bill would cast a much wider net, mandating the prevailing wage for not just direct government contracts, but for any projects getting grants, bond financing, tax abatements or any other sort of support valued over $1 million from the New York City government.

“The same rules should apply when the city is doing the work directly or when they’re subsidizing somebody else to do the work,” the Manhattan lawmaker told City & State.

…

Critics like the Real Estate Board of New York, which represents developers, have spent heavily in the past to oppose efforts to expand the prevailing wage requirements, claiming higher labor costs would discourage private developers from building affordable housing.

Kallos countered that paying workers less than prevailing wage actually makes the affordable housing crisis worse by creating demand for housing at deeper levels of affordability.

“I’m disappointed to learn even the construction workers can’t afford the affordable housing that they are building,” he said.

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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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Providing A ‘Level Playing Field’ For Workers, Public Bodies, Business Owners & Taxpayers To Ensure ‘All’ Benefit

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Published Wednesday, October 31, 2018
by WNYLaborToday.com Editor-Publisher Tom Campbell

(HAMBURG, NEW YORK) – Fear – in a word, according to representatives of the non-profit New York Foundation For Fair Contracting, is holding back many Non-Union Construction Workers from reporting wage theft or unsafe working conditions.
That’s because they don’t know where to go for help when it comes to being cheated out of their wages and their fringe benefits.

And just how would they ever make the right authorities aware of what’s happened to them without facing repercussions from their employer or being fired from their jobs?

And it’s not just Construction Workers. Its contractors looking for a fair shot at obtaining public construction work, while at the same time battling unscrupulous contractors that receive low responsible bidder status on a project.

And its public bodies that want to award contracts to responsible contractors who qualify as the low bidder.

After all, in the end, it’s the taxpayer who foots the bill when it’s found a debarred contractor that’s been restricted from bidding for public works jobs does indeed get the job.

But here in New York State, there’s an entity that’s currently working to level the playing field by supporting fair contracting across the State – the New York Foundation For Fair Contracting, a non-profit Labor-Management Organization that monitors Prevailing Wage public project work and the competitive bidding process in Western, Central and Northern New York, including those that fall under New York State Labor Law § 220 (covering public work) and Federally-funded Davis-Bacon (Prevailing Wage) work.

Under the State Freedom of Information Law and the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the NYFFC – which is not a private investigative service – reviews bid documents, contracts and certified payroll records to ensure contracting companies are following the laws and regulations that govern the industry.

The NYFFC’s compliance and monitoring work is done for the benefit of public bodies, as well as the taxpaying public. And its investigations serve to curb the corrupt act of underbidding and disenfranchising, not only for the individual Workers on a project, but also for taxpayers who expect a timely, safe and high quality end result.

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I won’t be pushed back into nonunion construction

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Barrie Smith
October October 23, 2018

To the editor:

In his latest letter to the editor, Richard Berman continues to peddle false and hateful claims about the supposed treatment of African-Americans by New York City construction unions.

As an African-American man who worked, and almost died, doing nonunion construction in this city, few things could be more insulting than having a rabidly anti-union white man beholden to nonunion construction companies claim to speak about what it means to treat me fairly.

I know full well he could not care less about me or anyone he proports to show outrage on behalf of.

It is no wonder Berman can’t find a single black advocacy group in this city to deliver his despicable message. No responsible person would. The social-justice community here is actually well past talking about how “diverse” the building trades now are. That is a given fact now.

What is actually getting talked about is how the construction unions are providing the most unprecedented opportunities for African-American men and women returning from long periods of incarceration to truly re-enter society and re-start their lives. Yes-the building trades are actually now at the forefront of the civil rights struggle in this city. People who care about that issue know it. And no one has the time or patience anymore for Berman’s nonsense.

…

Numerous studies have shown-contrary to Berman’s claims-that the national pay gap between white and black workers is substantially ameliorated by collective bargaining agreements. But what really matters to workers of color is how they get paid and treated when they show up for work. Nonunion minority construction workers in the city are making a whopping 45% less than their counterparts with union representation. People care about whether they can feed their families, not fake statistics. The union jobs are the ones that make that possible.

(Read More)

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3 ‘Buffalo Billion’ defendants sentenced to federal prison (NY)

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AUTHOR – Kim Slowey
PUBLISHED – Dec. 10, 2018

Dive Brief:

Three defendants were sentenced to federal prison last week in the “Buffalo Billion” corruption scandal. Syracuse, New York-based developers Joseph Gerardi and Steven Aiello, as well as former Buffalo general contractor Louis Ciminelli, were convicted of fraud and other charges earlier this year for their roles in a bid-rigging scheme that netted their companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni sentenced all three in separate hearings, handing each one a $500,000 fine plus jail time. Caproni ordered Aiello to serve three years, Gerardi to serve 30 months and Ciminelli to serve 28 months. Ciminelli has up to one year to pursue an appeal before reporting to prison. Gerardi and Aiello also remain free, but Caproni has yet to decide how long they ultimately will be able to postpone incarceration, pending appeals.

Prosecutors said Aiello’s and Gerardi’s company, Cor Development, netted $100 million in state construction work for a $14.4 million film soundstage in Syracuse and a $90 million LED lighting factory in Dewitt, New York, as part of a bid-rigging scheme. As LPCiminelli’s former chief, authorities accused Ciminelli of paying a bribe to a former aide of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in order to score a $750 million contract to build a SolarCity plant in Buffalo.

Dive Insight:

Not long after Ciminelli was charged in the bid-rigging case, LPCiminelli reportedly lost $4 billion in contracts and was forced to lay off 10% of its staff after losing an estimated 14 projects. The company also sold off much of its equipment and tools and repositioned itself as a program manager and developer.

Two other former LPCiminelli executives were also indicted in the case, but prosecutors decided there wasn’t enough evidence against former company president Michael Laipple and dismissed the charges in June. Kevin Schuler pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy for his part in the scheme and testified against Ciminelli and others.

(Read More)

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Two New York firms implicated in minority contractor fraud (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Kim Slowey
Oct. 17, 2018

Dive Brief:

Bell Mechanical and Kaplan Schmidt Electric have been named in an alleged minority contractor scheme in Rochester, New York, that resulted in the arrest of Orville Dixon, head of Journee Construction, earlier this year, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. The two local contractors were named after an analysis of Rochester City School District contracts and complaints by the FBI and U.S. attorney general.

Bell and Kaplan Schmidt allegedly needed to hire a certain percentage of minority- or women-owned subcontractors to meet the requirements of the school district’s modernization program. Instead, the two supposedly used Dixon, who is African-American, and Journee as a “pass-through” to make it appear as if Journee was doing the work. Bell allegedly created a fake purchase order in 2013 that showed it bought $600,000 worth of HVAC equipment from Journee and put Bell’s workers on Journee’s payroll to make it appear that Journee was staffing the project. Kaplan Schmidt also supposedly falsely claimed it purchased material from Journee and allegedly agreed to pay Dixon’s company 2.5% of the subcontract amount.
In 2016, contractors working for the Rochester school district were fined a total of $825,000 to settle claims of fraud related to minority contracting. Those companies were Concord Electric Corp. (fined $350,000), Hewitt Young Electric ($160,000), Michael A. Ferrauilo Plumbing and Heating ($90,000), Manning Squires Hennig ($200,000) and Mark Cerrone Inc. ($25,000).

Dive Insight:

There are a growing number instances of minority contractor fraud in the U.S., possibly a result of more state and local government agencies adopting or increasing minority- or woman-owned business requirements. Sometimes there may not be enough qualified minority firms available for the job, but in some cases, contractors just want to expedite construction and are willing to risk the potential fallout.

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Albany contractor pleads guilty to $800K fraud scheme (NY)

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2 local men accused of exploiting, defrauding minority-owned businesses

Staff report
Friday, October 12, 2018

ALBANY – One of two local men accused of exploiting and defrauding minority-owned businesses in an $800,000 scheme has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay back his victims, Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Friday.

After pleading guilty to felony grand larceny and scheme to defraud in Schenectady and Albany county courts this week, Michael Martin, 47, of Latham, is expected to receive a sentence of 3 1/2 to 12 years in state prison, Underwood said. He has also agreed to pay back the roughly $800,000 he stole from minority-owned businesses, employees and an insurance company.

Martin and his business partner, 52-year-old Scott Henzel of Albany, were arrested in July following a joint investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, state Inspector General’s Office and the state Labor Department. According to investigators, Martin was the crime’s mastermind.

“The defendant’s elaborate scheme defrauded minority-owned businesses and his own employees – all to game the system for his own benefit. Now he’s facing the consequences,” Underwood said. “My office will continue to prosecute fraudsters that take advantage of New York businesses, workers and taxpayers.”

As part of his plea, Martin admitted that he served as president and owner of Eastern Building & Restoration, a general contractor headquartered in Albany, from 2004 to 2014. Henzel, he said, served as controller.

In those roles, he said, they offered two minority business enterprises – Lorice Enterprises and Precision Environmental Solutions – a chance to partner with Eastern to learn how to successfully run and bid on construction projects. In reality, the pair took over the two businesses, Martin said, managing all day-to-day business activities, including staffing of laborers and bidding decisions, as well as all banking activity and financial decisions.

(Read More)