The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced that construction company Lancaster Enterprises Inc, owned by Marie Raftes, must pay over $100,000 in restitution and penalties for payroll fraud and wage theft against employees.  Raftes and Lancaster Enterprises are charged with failing to pay $37,000 of earned wages to 10 employees who worked at two public construction sites, for willfully failing to pay the prevailing wage, for failure to submit truthful payroll records to authorities, and for misclassifying employees as independent contractors.  In a press release from the attorney general’s office, Coakley states:

“At a time when many people are struggling financially, it is crucial that workers receive Read more » about Repeat Offender Marie Raftes and Lancaster Enterprises Fined Again

A draft executive order was released from the White House that will require contractors bidding for federal work to disclose every political contribution that the directors, owners and officers have made before they would be considered for the projects.

Let’s see, does that smell a little fishy to you?  Well, it does to me.

We already know that the White House can issue executive orders that can turn our industry upside down.  We saw it in the executive order on PLAs that favored the labor unions on Federal projects.  This one is even more political and holds the possibility that if you didn’t contribute to a certain party or candidate, you would not be considered Read more » about First PLAs and Now Political Contribution Disclosure for Contractors on Federal Contracts. What’s going on?

Build a Better Texas is a collaborative effort of honest construction businesses, faith leaders, and advocates of fairness and safety who want to improve the construction industry in Texas through research and through the development of ideas which will “reward good business practices, invest in workforce development, and level the playing field in the industry” for honest contractors and subs.  Their website posts reports and videos highlighting the issues faced by the industry which employs around 600,000 workers, making construction one of the top ten industries in Texas.

One of the handicaps which honest contractors face is having to bid for jobs against dishonest employers who misclassify their employees Read more » about Workplace Fraud in Texas

The good news for owners who are bidding their work is that there are more companies bidding for that work.  One example of that is shown in a news video posted yesterday by WSAZ/NewsChannel3 in Huntington, West Virginia about a renovation and repurposing of a building in the Cabell County School District.  They have been flooded by bids for the job.  They received about 4 times as many bids as they expected for the demolition portion of the project alone.

In this case, a local firm won a bid over larger national and regional firms who are looking for work anywhere they can find it.  That is good news for the local firm, but bad for the other firms.   Read more » about The Good, the Bad and the Really Ugly

According to a story last week in Syracuse.com, the online connection to The Post-Standard newspaper in Syracuse, New York,

“The owners of a Pennsylvania construction company face up to 10 years in prison, a fine up to $250,000 and other penalties for using illegal aliens on a theater reconstruction job at ShoppingTown Mall in DeWitt.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Syracuse reported that the contractors pled guilty to “conspiracy to conceal, harbor and shield illegal aliens from detection for commercial advantage and private gain”.   Read more » about Coming soon to Texas?

Last week the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Business & Industry heard testimony in Austin relating to House Bill 2989 which would establish the Workplace Fraud Prevention Act (WFPA) in Texas.   The bill speaks directly to the construction industry and attempts to define what an employee in the construction industry is in order to curtail the rampant misclassification of employees as independent contractors in the state.

State Representative Joseph Deshotel, who chairs the committee, is sponsoring the bill, and introduced it that day before the committee.   Read more » about Texas Legislators Consider Workplace Fraud Prevention Act

This recent commentary in Bloomberg brings up an interesting point about the role of the Yakuza or Japanese mafia in the reconstruction of the earthquake damaged parts of Japan.  Because of the need for construction to get underway as soon as possible, some think that the Yakuza will take advantage of the situation and become more deeply involved in the construction industry again.  They have been banned from several projects in the country and the government is trying to distance themselves from the crime organizations, but that might be hard to do in the light of the massive destruction caused by the earthquake.

This article brings up a major question in my mind.  We know that there is a history of crime involvement in the construction industry in the US that extends back into the 1800s.  Stories of links between organized crime and the unions is the stuff of novels.

The question that I am wondering about is the involvement of the Mexican cartels in the construction industry in the US today.   Read more » about Crime Watch

This morning a group of construction workers and supporters of the Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center held a protest across from the site of a new discount store to demand justice for nine workers who are owed more than $16,000 in unpaid wages by their employer, subcontractor Carole Johnson Builders LLC and the general contractor on the project, Williams Development and Construction Inc.  Fifteen workers who did interior construction work on the building were not paid for all of the hours they worked during January and February of this year.   Read more » about Unpaid Construction Workers Protest in Houston

We got this one from one of the friends of Construction Citizen, John Hinson in Dallas.

Pennsylvania enacted a misclassification law last month and within a week, officials had begun cracking down on the violators across the state.

Pennsylvania television station WFMZ/69 News quoted John Morganelli, district attorney in Northampton County, as saying "Essentially, this law attempts to level the playing field between businesses that classify their employees properly as employees, and those who are bad actors under the current system.”   Read more » about Misclassification Crackdown in Pennsylvania

Stephen E. Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) was in Phoenix today to release a plan to increase the demand for construction and in so doing, grow the national economy.  The plan is titled Building a Stronger Future, A New Blueprint for Economic Growth.  According to AGC’s press release, the plan “outlines measures to help boost private sector demand for construction, help tackle a growing infrastructure maintenance backlog and reduce needless red tape and regulations. ... The association developed the plan to overcome the years-long construction downturn that has left over 2.2 million construction workers unemployed and the industry’s unemployment rate at 21.8 percent, more than twice the national average.”   Read more » about AGC Releases Plan to Revive Construction Industry