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Contractor at University of Tennessee Project to Pay Over $300K for Hiding Payroll

junio 7, 2017/0 Comentarios/en Sin categorizar /por Saltworks

Mid-South Regional Council of Carpenters:

A contractor working on the University of Tennessee’s Strong Hall construction project will pay more than $300,000 in fines for labor violations.

JAC Jack Construction LLC, a Knoxville-based labor provider, has agreed to pay a penalty of $336,987 assessed by the Tennessee Department of Labor Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC).

The penalty is based on over a year’s worth of work at the University, where labor was provided for Proffitt & Sons, Inc.

In the settlement agreement, JAC Jack “understated or concealed …[its]…payroll, number of employees and/or appropriate classification of employees in an effort to avoid payment of proper workers’ compensation insurance premiums.”

Read the settlement agreement, below.

The Mid-South Carpenters Regional Council consistently tries to prevent this type of payroll fraud by calling attention to the problem. Here’s a background article about the effort surrounding JAC Jack and the UT project, and why it’s so dangerous to a community.

“Those workers were exploited, immigrant labor,” said Mike Boner, executive secretary-treasurer of the Regional Council.

Many contractors in Tennessee, such as Proffitt & Sons, get most of their workers from labor brokers.

“These labor providers aren’t name-brand companies,” said Boner. “They’re usually a guy with a cell phone that can round up dozens or even hundreds of workers. Then the labor brokers pay the workers off the books. We call that ‘payroll fraud.’”

The use of labor brokers is a serious problem in the construction industry because workers lose important workplace protections like workers’ compensation benefits, unemployment insurance and overtime. In addition, employment taxes for Social Security and Medicare are not paid. That enables the cheating contractor to underbid law-abiding businesses by up to 30 percent.

“All of this cheating hurts every one of us by driving down our wages and driving up our taxes and insurance costs,” said Boner. “The fine from the BWC is large and should be a warning to all of the other companies out there who use the same practices.”

File: JAC Jack Settlement TNBWC 3-10-17.pdf

IKORCC Stands Against Wage Discrimination

mayo 24, 2017/0 Comentarios/en Sin categorizar /por Saltworks

Posted: May 24, 2017 11:03 AM EDT
Updated: May 24, 2017 3:37 PM EDT

By Chris Otts

WDRB 41 Louisville News

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — About 100 construction workers helping to build the Omni Hotel downtown walked off the job early Wednesday.

The workers, almost all of whom are Latino immigrants, said they recently discovered they’re being paid less than others on the project. They hang and finish drywall and install metal studs, they said.

“We are the only one underpaid on this job,” said Marco Cruz, who described himself as a safety worker. “Everyone else is making like $40-$45 an hour and we’re doing like $20 an hour. So we feel like we were discriminated by our gender, our race, and that’s what we’re demanding, just fair salaries.”

David Suetholz, a labor attorney helping the workers, said it’s their right under federal law to come together and demand a conversation with their employer about their wages.

“They are the only workers — the only workers — on this project that are being paid a residential rate,” Suetholz said. “Every other classification of workers on this project are being paid commercial rates, and it’s my sneaking suspicion it’s because they’re immigrants.”

A spokeswoman for the Omni project did not immediately return a call. Neither did a spokeswoman for Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor.

Antonio Ramos, a business representative with the Indiana-Kentucky-Ohio Regional Council of Carpenters Local 175, said the workers are employed by subcontractors called PCC and PDC, which WDRB could not immediately verify.

The workers are not organized by the carpenters union, but Ramos said the union supports them.

Suetholz said he assumes the workers have legal status in the United States because employers are required to verify that.

“As an advocate for working people, it’s none of my concern because I want these people to be treated the same way everyone else on this project should be treated,” he said.

About half the cost of the $289 million hotel and apartment building is being picked up by city and state taxpayers through a special taxing district.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer has said the construction workers on the project would be paid the same “prevailing wages” the state has set for publicly funded construction projects.

The Republican-led state legislature repealed the prevailing wage requirements in January, but the new law applies only to projects that were not already in the works.

IKORCC Stands Against Wage Discrimination