Last March, Construction Citizen covered a protest held by workers who had been cheated out of wages by Carole Johnson Builders LLC, a subcontractor on a Houston construction project. We were able to interview of one of the foreman who had worked for the subcontractor on the project and who had not been able to collect the wages he was owed.Bobby Herndon worked for Carole Johnson Builders LLC and was told that he would be paid wages by the hour. He was not paid overtime for the hours he worked each week over 40, and in fact the Carole Johnson Builders LLC did not even pay for all of the hours Herndon worked. When asked how much money he was still owed of the money he had earned, the pain and hurt from the injustice is evident in the following video as he answers “twenty-four hundred dollars.”
A recent decision following an investigation by the New Orleans District Office Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor tied a Louisiana general contractor to the employment of drywall installers hired by a subcontractor for work on several residential and commercial projects. The workers were misclassified as independent contractors and denied overtime wages for the time they worked each week over 40 hours. The subcontractor, Escapade Acoustic Drywall from Lafayette, and the general contractor, Lloyd N. Moreau LLC of Pineville were found to have a joint employment relationship and are both being held responsible for the workers’ back wages.A press release from the US Department of Labor earlier this month explains the problem with the growing practice of worker misclassification / payroll fraud.“The practice is a serious threat both to workers entitled to good, safe jobs, and employers who obey the law. Too often workers are deprived of overtime and minimum wages, and forced to pay taxes that their employers are legally obligated to pay. Honest employers have a difficult time competing against scofflaws.”
June 21, 2011
Houston business owner Lowell Daniel offers contracting services in landscaping, irrigation, and drainage. He has heard horror stories from some of the workers he has employed about the mistreatment and wage theft that they have suffered from other contractors while trying to earn a living for themselves and for their families.Disturbed by the injustice some of these workers had faced, Mr. Daniel attempted to “call out” some of the dishonest contractors by informing the customers who had hired them that those contractors had not paid the workers who actually performed the work for the customers. Daniel explained that the workers had agreed to do the grueling work for a lower fee than many workers would require, and that they were not even paid that lower amount. Another instance he was told about was a case where some of the workers had been taken from Houston to a farm in Louisiana in order to harvest sweet potatoes. Not only were the workers treated abominably throughout the harvest, when they were brought back to Houston, they were abandoned beside the highway without their full promised wages and left with no option but to walk the rest of the way home.
June 20, 2011
Tompkins County Workers’ Center in Ithaca, New York offers a Living Wage Employer Certification for businesses who wish to publically commit to certain criteria regarding the treatment and compensation of their employees. The employers agree to pay at least $11.67 per hour (or the current Tompkins County Living Wage rate) to all regular employees, offer them partially paid health insurance, and be free of health and safety violations.The Workers’ Center website points out that the benefit to employers goes beyond just knowing that they are “doing the right thing”. The website affirms:“By paying your employees fairly, you take advantage of the service/profit cycle. When you invest in staff rewards, both tangible and intangible, their satisfaction
June 15, 2011
On May 27th, Governor Rick Perry signed into law a groundbreaking measure that will expand the ability of local law enforcement agencies to arrest employers who cheat their workers out of their pay. Texas SB 1024, the “Wage Theft Bill”, which was sponsored by Senator José Rodriguez (D-El Paso) and Representative Eddie Rodriguez (D- Austin), creates a powerful mechanism for workers to recover their unpaid wages.Wage theft is a widespread problem that occurs when employers fail to pay their employees for their work. In certain industries like construction, wage theft occurs in epidemic proportions. According to the University of Texas study Building Austin, Building Injustice: Working Conditions in the Texas Construction Industry, one in every five Austin construction workers
June 09, 2011
Kim Bobo, founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, talked with Construction Citizen blogger Jim Kollaer during her recent visit to Houston. Kollaer asked her about the upcoming second edition of her book Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans are Not Getting Paid – and What We Can Do About It. The new addition will include a chapter about ethical businesses to demonstrate that even in industries like construction where everyone is struggling to survive the current economic downturn, there are still ethical employers who are doing the right thing. There is a new chapter about payroll fraud (also called worker misclassification and workplace fraud) which is the illegal practice where employers pay their workers as independent contractors instead of as employees. Two new chapters focus on state and local efforts to enforce wage theft laws and penalize violators.
June 01, 2011
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
May 31, 2011
Editor's note: Since this article was originally published, HoustonWorks has gone out of business. The new YouthBuild grant is operated by SER-Jobs for Progress.Last month YouthBuild Houston and HoustonWorks teamed up with Houston Habitat for Humanity to participate in the Hands on Housing Block Party where volunteers worked to replace a broken garage and perform other home repairs, remove debris and plant flowers for an elderly resident in Jacinto City, Texas. In honor of Earth Day, the materials used were donated recycled materials.
May 23, 2011
Construction Citizen blogger Jim Kollaer recently met up with Cristina Tzintzún, the executive director of Austin’s Workers Defense Project (WDP). For the past 8 years she...
May 19, 2011
In a recent article in the Reno Gazette-Journal’s online newspaper (RGJ.com), Siobhan McAndrew writes about the design shift in recent years of retail shopping centers. The current trend is to build “lifestyle centers” which arrange retail stores, restaurants, movie cinemas and even hotels and apartments in outdoor park-like settings with fountains, landscaping, walkways and sculptures. Some host weekend farmers’ markets or outdoor concerts. McAndrew writes:“Alamo Quarry Marketplace in San Antonio, Texas: Opened in 1997 the 585,000-square-foot center has eight restaurants and a 16-screen cinema. Located on the site of closed cement plant, the original smokestacks are still at the center. Developed by Trammell Crow, a commercial real estate firm.”This is one of 10 examples of these centers the article lists. It includes details such as
May 17, 2011
