The Ala Moana Center was raided by state investigators over charges of contractors committing payroll fraud. Investigators from state tax, labor and business departments went to the luxury mall in response to complaints from the Hawaii Construction Alliance. The Alliance is a group of trade unions that includes the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters.

Information on alleged improper practices was gathered by undercover informants, including a video of workers being paid in cash. Watch a news report on this raid through the Top of the News section of PayrollFraud.net.

“Workers are being paid in cash by these contractors and subcontractors which begs the question: are they filing the proper paperwork with the state?” said Tyler Dos Santos, Alliance Executive Director.

In August 1881, 36 carpenters from eleven cities met in a Chicago warehouse to form a national union. Four days of heated discussion produced a constitution, a structure, and a new organization with two thousand members—the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

The founding of the union was a response to changing conditions in the construction industry in the second half of the 19th century. The old ways of building were disappearing as a new “modern” system emerged.

Shifts in the larger economic order transformed the daily life of the working carpenter. Facing turbulent times and an uncertain future, carpenters turned to unionism to serve their collective interests.

The carpenter in colonial America had been a man with considerable bargaining power. As one of a small number of skilled artisans in a young society eager for new houses, commercial buildings, and wooden ships, he often earned more than twice as much as his English counterpart.

The carpenter who carried his tools across the Atlantic also brought with him the European “guild system” in which the categories of workers encompassed masters, journeymen, and apprentices. Each handled the tools of the trade in a centuries-old division of work responsibilities. The rules were unwritten, but tradition held that masters looked out for the long-term welfare of journeymen and the training of apprentices, as they passed on the “art” and “mystery” of the craft to the next generation. The division between the groups was not one of permanent status, but of age, years of experience, and levels of skill. 

Barring unforeseen circumstances, an apprentice who stayed with the trade could expect, in time, to become a master. To the extent that masters, journeymen, and apprentices shared a common work experience and vision of the industry, their economic interests tended to coincide. Early efforts at organization focused on stabilizing prices and reducing competition between carpenters, not employer/employee conflicts. In the 1700s, master and journeymen carpenters united in most American cities to establish “books of prices,” volumes that standardized the costs of every aspect of the carpentry trade.

As the Industrial Revolution unfolded in the United States, the guild system gave way to a capitalist set of relations in the building industry. The dramatic increase in post-Civil War construction activity outpaced the ability of the masters to meet the labor demands. The volume of building activity shot up 250 percent between 1866 and 1906, an upsurge that included wild swings of phenomenal expansion and terrifying crashes. The dizzying pace of new construction was part of a nation in change. Railroads connected once remote towns and villages. Technological innovations wiped out entire handicrafts and introduced the factory system to growing numbers of industries. The United States emerged from a sea of self-contained communities to a unified country linked by communication and transportation systems.

Mechanical inventions and new building materials altered the carpenter’s work. Factories with new machines—cut-off saws, mortising and tenoning machines, borers, compound carvers, and power sanders—enabled the mass production of items such as blinds, doors, flooring, and stairs that had been fashioned by hand. Cast-iron replaced wood beams as early as 1852 and, by the end of the century, the introduction of structural steel reinforced concrete, and the elevator laid the groundwork for the modern skyscraper.

But the industry changed in other ways as well. The opportunities for profit generated by economic growth attracted speculators and middle men with little or no attachment to the traditions of the industry. These men seized the opportunities created by escalating construction demand but remained ignorant of the issues of craft pride and quality that characterized the guild system. “Jerry” building and “botch” work were frequently the by-products of the new breed of builders who emphasized speed, productivity, and profitability.

The emergence of the contractor/businessman strained the personal connections that had existed between masters, journeymen, and apprentices. At one time, a carpenter might have worked for a single master for twenty years; by the late 1800s, he might have as many as twenty employers in one year.

At the turn of the century, Connecticut carpenter J.W. Brown looked back at the five decades of his trade. He recalled the times when his employer “felt himself under a moral obligation” to the working carpenter and his steady employment. Now, reported Brown, the carpenter had become “accustomed to look upon himself not only as a wage worker for life, but as an appendage to a monstrous machine for the production and distribution of wealth.”

Wiljo Interiors was sub-contracted by prime contractor Cherokee CRC LLC to work on a $2.9 million federally-funded construction project at the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Wiljo Interiors then brought in an additional sub-contractor, Strong Rock Drywall LLC, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, misclassified its owner and workers as independent contractors, yet dictated what they would pay them. Strong Rock also failed to pay its employees as required by law, but their work was directed and controlled by Wiljo. Therefore, the division found there was a joint employment relationship between the two employers, holding both employers responsible, both individually and jointly, for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Strong Rock Drywall employees worked 50 to 70 hours per week, but since they were misclassified as independent contractors, were paid only straight time for all the hours they worked, being denied legally-required overtime for hours beyond 40 per week. Employees were also denied fringe benefit payments required on this federally-financed contract under the Davis Bacon Act.

Wiljo Interiors, Inc. paid $208,756 in overtime back wages, prevailing wages and fringe benefits to 178 Strong Rock construction workers to remedy the violations. Additionally, the company acknowledged they were the controlling employer and committed to properly classifying workers as employees, using the correct job classification when determining workers’ prevailing wage rates and paying fringe benefits required by law in the future.

“When a joint-employment relationship exists, we will hold those companies accountable when wage violations occur and workers are cheated,” said Betty Campbell, acting regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division in the Southwest. “Simply labeling a worker as an independent contractor does not mean they are not truly an employee. Misclassified employees are not only denied fair wages, they are also denied access to critical benefits and protections. The Wage and Hour Division is vigorously pursuing corrective action in those situations when workers are, in fact, employees to ensure that they are paid their legally-required wages and to level the playing field for employers who play by the rules.”

Source: www.dol.gov

Contractors that break the law often do not have workers’ compensation coverage. So who pays when workers are injured? In Connecticut, the Second Injury Fund (SIF) pays the bills. In fiscal year 2015, the SIF paid $3.9 million. The SIF does seek recovery from non-compliant employers. Unfortunately, the SIF was only able to recover $775,000. Law-abiding employers, of course, pick up the tab for the rest through state assessments.