Construction workers least likely to have health insurance, report finds

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
March 27, 2018

 

Dive Brief:

  • Of the 20 professions least likely to have health insurance, 11 of them are in the construction industry, according to MarketWatch
  • The average uninsured rate for fulltime workers in the U.S. is 12%, but the percentage of certain categories of construction workers without health insurance is much higher, including roofers (50.5%); drywall hangers, finishers and ceiling tile installers (49.5%); plasterers and stucco masons (49.1%); fence installers (45.7%); carpet, tile and floor installers (45.2%); painters and paperhangers (43.1%); construction trade helpers (42.8%); installation, maintenance and repair helpers (40.5%); cement masons, concrete finishers and terrazzo workers (38.7%); brick masons, block masons, stonemasons and reinforced iron and rebar workers (38.6%); and construction laborers (37.5%)
  • At least some of the workers who reported not having health insurance coverage could be classified as independent contractors, which means that they are operating as a business and not entitle to benefits from another employer.

Dive Insight:

In most states, companies are required to carry workers’ compensation insurance so that if a worker is injured on the job, medical bills, partial salary, rehabilitation costs and training for a new trade, if necessary, will be paid regardless of whether the injured person has health insurance. However, is the worker is classified as an independent contractor or contract worker, then he or she is not covered by this benefit.
And, according to the Workers Defense Project, the southern U.S. is the region most likely to have construction workers laboring as independent contractors.
As part of its study, the Workers Defense Project reported that only 5% of the 1,435 workers it interviewed in six southern states
said workers’ compensation would cover the cost of their work injuries, and 57% said they earned less than $15 an hour.

Hiring women can ease the construction labor shortage

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Vicki O’Leary
March 23, 2018

Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Vicki O’Leary, who was appointed chair of the North American Building Trades Union (NABTU) Tradeswomen’s Committee after joining the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Union in 2016. She is a 32-year ironworker member from Local 1 in Chicago, and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in labor and leadership. The opinions represented in this piece are independent of Construction Dive’s views.

It’s a time to celebrate the progress we have made in women’s rights but also time for reflection. We ought to stop and look back at the progress we have made or the lack there of. In many areas we have made progress but in many others, progress is rather illusive. Women are viewed as equal bread winners and they hold key positions in many industries. Does it mean that we have achieved gender equality?

Let’s turn to the construction industry. Despite the progress we have seen in the societal acceptance of women as equal breadwinners, capable leaders and successful entrepreneurs, in many industries such progress is less prevalent than others. Construction industry has a long history of sexism and discrimination against tradeswomen. In some cases, such treatment ended in tragedy such the fate of carpenter apprentice Outi Hicks, who was killed on the jobsite by a coworker.

An uphill battle

In the 21st century, it is shocking that women in the construction industry still face an uphill battle when it comes to advancement. But when you consider the root causes and statistics, it’s not such a shock.

Almost a third of women working in construction fear sexism will hold them back from the industry’s top jobs, a recent study by Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) found last year. The construction trades have long been among the industries with the lowest percentage of gender diversity in the workforce. Women represent only 9% of the overall construction workforce and 3% of the building trades.

Why does it matter? The construction industry is experiencing a dire skilled labor shortage and women make up half of the population and workforce. It’s intuitive to conclude that a large part of the solution to the skilled labor shortage is in the hands of the untapped talent – we need more tradeswomen! It’s that simple. If the construction industry doesn’t act promptly to address and mitigate sexism and breakdown gender bias, it wouldn’t just be hindering progress in closing the gender gap but also the skilled labor gap.

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DA holds labor law conference

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By: Adina Genn
March 23, 2018

Labor leaders, elected officials and representatives from county, state and federal agencies gathered this week for a labor law conference at The Morrelly Center in Bethpage, hosted by Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas.

The conference, the district attorney’s second, aimed to share information and discuss trends toward protecting employees and taxpayers.

“When unscrupulous employers cheat in one aspect, they often cheat in everything,” Singas said in a statement. “It starts with stealing hard earned wages from their employees, and then evolves into submitting false payroll records, false tax returns and cheating the unemployment insurance system.”

In 2017, the Nassau DA began working with district attorney offices in New York City and Westchester, along with the state Attorney General’s office and the U.S. Department of Labor to launch a wage-theft investigation within the construction industry. This year the Nassau DA’s wage theft saw 30 cases related to undocumented workers who aren’t being paid, up from two last year. And at an event that the DA’s office organized with Univision generated new cases.

Attendees at the 2018 conference included Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino and Putnam County District Attorney Robert Tendy as well as representatives from the Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office; Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office; the New York State Labor Department; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; Queens County District Attorney’s Office; the Law Office of Archer, Byington, Glennon & Levine; and Maryhaven Center of Hope.

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Albany retrieves $35M in wages stolen from N.Y. workers

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BY GLENN BLAIN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, April 3, 2018, 8:30 PM

ALBANY – State investigators recovered more than $35.3 million in stolen wages in 2017 – a boost of over $1.3 million from the year before, officials announced Tuesday.

The wages were returned to 36,446 workers across New York, including 15,577 in the city, who were not properly compensated for their time on the job.

“We have zero tolerance for those who seek to rob employees out of an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work,” Gov. Cuomo said.

Since taking office in 2011, Cuomo has made wage theft a priority for the state Labor Department and other agencies. With the 2017 figures, the state has now returned $258.4 million to 215,335 workers.

The state’s just-approved 2018-19 budget included $1 million to fund the Labor Department’s efforts to investigate wage theft, Cuomo added.

Among the most common forms of wage theft are failure to pay overtime, failure to pay the correct prevailing wage and the charging of workers for required uniforms and equipment.

State officials urged workers who wish to file a wage theft complaint to call (888) 4-NYSDOL.

(See Article)

Do wage theft laws in Ohio harm or help workers?

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

BUSINESS
Updated Apr 15, 10:24 AM; Posted Apr 15, 5:00 AM

Cleveland, Ohio — Matthew J. Grassi got to savor victory for only a few minutes.

The Ohio Department of Commerce had just awarded him $1,701 in a wage theft claim against his former employer. Then the investigator told him, “It is going to really be difficult for you to see this money.”

A decade later, Grassi has “never seen a dime.” His former employer never responded to the state’s request for payment. The state says the debt probably can’t be collected.

Grassi was a victim of wage theft, a term commonly used to describe failure to pay workers fully for their labor. In Ohio, his story may not be that uncommon.

Ohio ranked second among the 10 largest states for a common type of wage theft, minimum wage violations, according to a report last year by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington. It estimates that Ohioans annually lose $600 million to wage theft.

But the state generally denies claims of wage theft, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of 4,800 complaints filed from 2010 to 2017. Even when it approves claims, victims only have a 50-50 chance to collect what they are owed.

Experts say it stems from two problems: the below-average strength of Ohio’s laws against wage theft, and the state’s lax enforcement of them.

Officially, Ohio lets wage-theft victims collect three times their back wages, called treble damages. In practice, it often chooses to waive that penalty for first-time offenders.

“In Ohio, it is not a set policy that is geared toward protecting workers and advocating for their rights,” said Daniel J. Galvin, a Northwestern University professor who studied enforcement of the law across the states. “They’re in the business of employer assistance.”

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Union workers: More coming forward against wage theft

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By Bill Shaner
April 12, 2018

Carpenters and activists again rallied in front of the 145 Front St. development earlier this week, but this time for a different reason: They were taking a victory lap of sorts, after a subcontractor on the job was forced to pay a carpenter $15,000 in a wrongful termination settlement.

P&B Partitions, a subcontractor hired by Erland Construction for sheet wall work, was forced by the National Labor Relations Board to pay contractor Eddie Vasquez $15,200 in back pay and $147 in interest, according to a copy of the settlement. Vasquez was fired, according to a release from the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, after he started working with the union on a wage theft case and encouraging others to join the effort.

Vasquez himself was at the rally, and said the money was overdue, but the larger issue of wage theft, of which the union now has 12 open cases, is still ongoing. The carpenters union rallied outside of 145 Front St. weekly for much of last year, demanding a resolution to the wage theft cases.

“We got the upper hand. More workers are coming forward. More workers are telling the truth,” said Vasquez. “What happens is, they prey on the weak. These companies prey on the weak.”

The U.S. Department of Labor complaints the union filed against the contractor are still under review. The cases, including Vasquez’s, mostly center around cash overtime pay promised but never delivered, according to the union. While only 12 complaints have been filed, Vasquez said the number of workers who weren’t paid overtime on the job is closer to 30.

Union organizer Manny Gines said a main goal of the antiwage theft effort, which would be addressed by a wage theft bill currently in the state Senate, is making sure companies with a record of cheating workers don’t get brought on jobs. As it stands now, Gines said, nothing prevents companies from hiring subcontractors with a history of wage theft.

“The bottom line is, they want to use cheap labor,” said Gines. “We’re trying to hold them accountable.”

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Construction Execs Plead Guilty To Defrauding Workers, DA Says

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More than two dozen construction workers were defrauded out of an estimated $95,000 in wages.

By Brendan Krisel, Patch National Staff
Apr 5, 2018 11:58 am ET

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY – Two construction company executives pleaded guilty to defrauding workers out of wages for a Midtown construction job, New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., announced Thursday.

Nikitas Nikolis, of Queens, and Anthony Caggiano, of Long Island, will be forced to pay restitution to workers hired by City Metro Corp between June 2015 and April 2017, prosecutors said. Nikolis, 61, and Caggiano, 54, pleaded guilty to first-degree scheme to defraud on Thursday, prosecutors said.

Between June 2015 and April 2017 Nikolis and Caggiano stole an estimated $95,000 from more than two dozen workers hired by City Metro Corp for a Midtown Manhattan construction job, prosecutors said. The two construction executives would divert proceeds from the job, intentionally failing to keep the workers’ wages in reserve, prosecutors said. As a result, some workers were paid only a portion of their earned wages and some workers weren’t paid at all, prosecutors said.

The workers were hired by City Metro Corp to perform a concrete installation project at a Midtown hotel under construction, prosecutors said.

“Whether it’s withholding overtime, misclassifying workers, or not paying them outright, wage theft is a crime that will be prosecuted aggressively in Manhattan,” District Attorney Vance said in a statement. “While wage theft is intolerable in any industry, it is particularly egregious in cases like these, where laborers who put their physical safety on the line are not even paid for their work.”

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Feds reach settlement with Santee contractor to pay stiffed workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Carl Prine
March 28, 2018

The U.S. Department of Labor announced Wednesday that investigators had reached a settlement with a Santee builder to repay back wages owed to the workers by a defunct subcontractor.

A & D General Contracting, Inc.. the prime contractor on a pair of federally funded projects for the Marine Corps, will compensate 16 workers $52,969 after El Cajon-based Amigos Design Build Landscapes failed to pay prevailing wages before declaring bankruptcy.

“The prime contractor in this case is stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing,” said Department of Labor spokesman Leo Kay during a telephone interview.

The case spun out of a probe by the agency’s Wage and Hour Division into Amigos Design’s work on two projects – a control gate at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego and Camp Pendleton’s Combat Training Tank and Instruction Facility, according to a Department of Labor press release.

Amigos Design filed for federal bankruptcy protection in late 2016, four years after the company was founded. In his Chapter 7 paperwork, company president Douglas Leal estimated $579,562 in debt to 113 creditors and only $482,182 in property to pay them.

…

Wage and Hour Division investigators determined that Amigos Design violated the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts by failing to pay required health and welfare rates to its employees.

The firm also incorrectly categorized some workers in jobs so that they would receive lower compensation rates than they deserved. Others were slotted as apprentices to pay them below the prevailing wage rates but they weren’t enrolled in any apprenticeship programs.

And on top of that, the company falsified its certified payroll reports, according to the Department of Labor.

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Labor organizations rally against wage theft and employee misclassification Station Row project in Providence

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

April 22, 2018
Steve Ahlquist

The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 11 held a rally Saturday afternoon in partnership with Fuerza Laboral and Rhode Island Jobs With Justice at the site of Trilogy Development’s Station Row project being built by Tocci Construction at Smith and Canal Streets in Providence.

Trilogy has received $5.6 million in public subsidies in the form of a Tax Stabilization Agreement (TSA) from the City of Providence, but, say leaders of the Saturday rally, Trilogy and Tocci have “sadly decided to use the broken model of open shop sub contracting,” adding, “Construction workers employed in the open shop model are at a greater risk of suffering substandard wages and benefits.”

“Wage theft, employee misclassification, tax and insurance fraud are all still far too
common in the industry in Rhode Island and across the country. While unionized contractors can be found to break the law as well as open shop contractors, the collective bargaining agreements in place give workers the ability to assert their rights and get remedy of grievances” said Raul Figueroa of Fuerza Laboral.

In September 2015 open shop contractor Cardoso Construction came to settlement around wage theft to pay more than $730,000 in back wages, interest and penalties under a settlement agreement with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT)’s Workplace Fraud Unit.

Rhode Island’s Underground Economy and Misclassification Task Force reported in 2016 that “the Division of Taxation found that 673 employees had been improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees in 2015, ordering the offending companies to pay more than $220,000 in taxes.”

Rhode Island’s Underground Economy and Misclassification Task Force reported in 2017 that “six construction companies entered into settlement agreements with DLT where they admitted to misclassifying 33 workers on four separate construction projects “and that “The Division of Taxation found that 590 RI employees had been improperly classified in 2016, resulting in almost $5.6 million in unreported wages and an assessment of $200,988 in additional state taxes.”

“When low road employers are allowed to cheat with impunity it undercuts not only worker’s wages and conditions but also legitimate contractors who are looking to compete in doing honest business”, said IUPAT District Council 11 Business Representative Justin Kelley, noting that these issues cause a cycle of exploitation and poverty and starve our municipal and state governments of much needed revenue.

(Read More)

bill-would-allow-cities-counties-to-opt-out-of-prevailing-wage

Raimondo Speaks To Construction Unions, Supports Prevailing Wage

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The taxpayers will not get any breaks on school construction but will pay the prevailing wage, the governor signaled in a D.C. speech.

By Margo Sullivan, Patch Staff |
Apr 18, 2018 1:30 pm ET

WASHINGTON, DC – Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo told the Building Trades unions she is running for another term, and she supports the prevailing wage. Raimondo delivered a speech in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. In her remarks, she mentioned the projects her administration has undertaken to put construction workers back on the job. Among the projects, she included her $1 billion plan to replace and rebuild the public schools.

State Rep. Patricia Morgan, a declared Republican candidate for governor, had suggested saving the taxpayers money by not paying the prevailing wage for the school construction jobs. But Raimondo, without mentioning Morgan, stood squarely with the unions and demands for the prevailing wage. The unions had a seat on the panel that developed the billion dollar plan for the schools. No taxpayer groups were represented.

Here is the governor’s speech.

Introduction
Thank you! I love having the opportunity to spend time with people who build things.

Thank you Sean McGarvey. I am so grateful for your friendship and support, and for inviting me back to speak here once again. Brent Booker, thank you for your leadership and for everything you do to support America’s tradesmen and tradeswomen. Terry O’Sullivan, you’re incredible – I’m so thankful for our partnership.

Armand Sabitoni – the pride of Rhode Island! I could not ask for a better friend or supporter. You are a champion for the building trades and you deserve so much credit for all of the exciting development that’s happening back home in our small state.

And to my own local leaders: Michael Sabitoni, Tim Byrnes, and Scott Duhamel, thank you for everything you’ve done to strengthen Rhode Island’s middle class. We’re not done yet. Let’s keep going, and let’s keep building.

Rebuilding the Middle Class Deal
For decades, there was a deal in America: if you worked hard and did what was expected of you, then you could raise a family with dignity and security. You could own a home, save for retirement, help your children pay for school, and even take time to visit beautiful beaches like the ones we have in Rhode Island!

In recent years, though, that “deal” has come under attack. There are powerful forces in America that have been working to ensure that a privileged few do well, without any concern for what happens to American workers.

In my state, the building trades got crushed by the recession. As recently as 2012, nearly one out four Rhode Islanders in the building trades were unemployed. When I was running for Governor, I would talk to tradesmen and tradeswomen. They’d been out of work three months, four months, nine months, a year. They were losing their homes. Losing their marriages. Losing their pride.

We had to do something. Back in 2014, across Rhode Island, there weren’t any jobs for laborers, but there was so much work to do.

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