House members introduce bill to raise NC’s minimum wage, improve worker rights and incomes (NC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Rob Schofield – February 12, 2019

… State Representatives Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) and Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe)  introduced some long overdue legislation yesterday to dramatically improve the treatment of workers in North Carolina. House Bill 46- the “Economic Security Act of 2019” – would make the following changes to state law:

  • it would increase the state minimum wage to $15 per hour over five years;
  • it would add North Carolina to the list of states that guarantee pay equity bay barring employers from paying employees of one gender less than employees of another gender for the same work;
  • it would require employers to provide workers with paid sick days and family medical leave (with some exemptions for small employers);
  • it would increase the tipped minimum wage;
  • it would enact new protections against “wage theft” by employers;
  • it would enact new “ban the box” protections to bar employers from inquiring into the criminal history of job applicants on initial application forms;
  • it would repeal the state’s ban on collective bargaining by public employees;
  • it would reinstate the state earned income tax credit and state child care tax credit.

Needless to say, the measure faces an uphill battle in the GOP-led General Assembly, but if there was ever a bill around which North Carolina working families could and should rally in 2019 and beyond, this is it.

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Construction Unions Ally with Striking Teachers to Fight for Prevailing Wage Laws (NC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

BY: MIKE ELK
MAY 15, 2018

As North Carolina teachers go out on strike tomorrow, they will be joined by the ranks of the state’s construction unions. Much like teachers, who lack the right to collective bargaining in the state, construction workers employed on North Carolina’s state-funded projects, such as schools, lack the ability to have their wages set by union-endorsed prevailing wage standards.

They say the lack of collective bargaining rights for public employees in North Carolina is symptomatic of how the state also undervalues all workers employed on projects financed on the public’s dime.

“When your public employees are organized, it sets the standard and foundation for everybody else,” says North Carolina IBEW Local 379 President Scott Thrower. “When they are not, the private sector is setting the ground.”

While construction workers in other states enjoy the benefits of prevailing wage standards, construction workers in North Carolina do not. Under prevailing wage standards, contractors are forced to pay the median wage that construction workers are paid in that region as determined by a government survey-the idea being that government-funded projects are supposed to keep wages from falling.

“Prevailing wage levels the playing field,” says Thrower.

Without a prevailing wage, contractors on state-funded projects can simply pay their workers whatever they want.

While unionized electrical contractors in the state, working on federally funded projects that use prevailing wage standards, make a minimum of $25 an hour with retirement and health care benefits, non-union electrical contractors work on state-funded projects that often pay as little as $15-$20 per hour due to the lack of prevailing wage standards on state-funded projects.

Worse, union leaders say the lack of prevailing wage standards negatively affects high road contractors, who use higher training and safety standards.

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Cooper signs worker misclassification, tax bills into law (NC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Associated Press |
Posted: Fri 9:34 PM, Aug 11, 2017

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Gov. Roy Cooper says legislation he signed will help North Carolina workers when employers intentionally misclassify them as independent contractors to avoid paying taxes and other benefits.

Cooper signed two bills Friday the General Assembly approved last week.

One addresses employee “misclassification” by confirming the creation of an office within the North Carolina Industrial Commission to investigate companies and discourage the practice. Former Gov. Pat McCrory signed an executive order directing the commission’s new work, but the law makes the effort permanent.

The other signed bill makes various tax law changes, including the creation of an income tax refund “checkoff” for breast and cervical cancer detection.

Two other bills remain on Cooper’s desk. He has until late Monday to sign or veto them. Otherwise, they become law.

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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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BREAKING: McCrory issues executive order on worker misclassification (NC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Posted by : Rob Schofield
Friday, December 18, 2015

 

Gov. McCrory took a step in the right direction this afternoon on the issue of employee misclassification – the persistent problem that plagues thousands of North Carolina businesses wherein workers are improperly treated as contractors when they ought to be employees.  As we have reported on multiple occasions this year (and as Raleigh’s News & Observer documented a while back in its special series “Contract to Cheat,”) this is a huge problem that harms workers and honest businesses and robs the state of tax revenue. Doug Burton, a Triangle area contractor put it this way:

“Treating employees as independent contractors when in fact they are regular employees is a fraudulent business practice that has become an epidemic. Some call this ‘misclassification,’ but it is in fact fraud that lets these cheating businesses – many from out of state – off the hook for basic protections, including minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, health and safety protections, unemployment insurance, federal and state tax withholding, social security withholdings and matching and more.

(Read More)

NC board takes action against construction firm

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Wake GOP legislator wants to change law to protect workers from job misclassification

BY MANDY LOCKE AND RICK ROTHACKER
03/07/2015

For businesses that want to install plumbing or heaters in North Carolina, here’s a message from state regulators: Follow the law and treat workers as employees or don’t do business here.

If some legislators have their way, that message will be locked into law during this session of the General Assembly for those companies and other employers. Companies that improperly treat employees as contractors could risk their professional licenses and face steep fines. Those that do would be barred from doing business with the state.

“We’ve got to protect the worker and fair competition in this state,” said Rep. Gary Pendleton, a Wake County Republican who is planning to introduce a bill Monday that would make employee misclassification a violation of the law.