Earlier this month, construction workers reached the top of the central core of London’s tallest skyscraper, The Shard. Originally called the London Bridge Tower due to its location, it was nicknamed The Shard of Glass due to its design which will be topped off with separated spires ending in sharp-looking points at 1017 feet high. At its conception, it was intended to become the tallest building in Europe, but it will not achieve that title since the Federation Tower in Moscow was completed at 1660 feet in 2009.Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, developed by Sellar Property Group, the project’s major financial backers include Qatar Islamic Bank, QInvest, Qatar National Bank and Barwa International. It is being built by Mace, a London-based international consultancy and construction company.
A few years ago, architect David Fisher teamed up with the firm Rotating Tower Dubai Development, part of the Dynamic Architecture Group to design a new kind of skyscraper made...
December 14, 2010
Thomas Bernhardt, the owner of a northern California concrete company and his wife Rachel Bernhardt, who processed the company’s payroll, were charged last week with 15 felony counts of payroll tax evasion and workers' compensation insurance fraud. T.B. Concrete of Granite Bay, a town about 30 miles east of Sacramento, performed concrete work for retail construction since its inception in 1999. A joint investigation begun in 2008 by the office of California Attorney General Edmund “Jerry” Brown and the state’s Employment Development Department and the Department of Insurance revealed that the Bernhardts misclassified 111 workers in order to avoid reporting the wages they paid to approximately 85% of the company’s workforce. Not only did they claim that employees were independent contractors to avoid paying state income tax and incurring a tax liability of over $230,000, but some of the employees who performed concrete work were classified as clerical workers to the Department of Insurance in order to avoid paying the higher workers’ compensation premiums.
December 10, 2010
November 18 was declared a National Day of Action Against Wage Theft, and Interfaith Worker Justice organized events across the country to focus attention on this increasing...
December 08, 2010
As reported by the Workers Defense Project in a press release last week, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) held a public meeting on Monday, November 8, 2010. ...
November 18, 2010
This Thursday, November 18 there will be events across the United States to focus attention on the national epidemic of wage theft, as Interfaith Worker Justice has called for a National Day of Action. The date is one week before Thanksgiving, a time when we often celebrate the things we are thankful for with feasts and fellowship, but workers who have not been paid what they are owed may struggle to provide for their families and may find it hard to celebrate. Interfaith Worker Justice helps local religious communities work with labor groups throughout the year to fight wage theft which is far too common, especially against low-wage workers.
November 16, 2010
NBC Nightly News featured this cool video today of a 15-story hotel “snapped together like Legos” and built in just 6 days in China’s Hunan Province thanks to the innovation of prefab construction. The Ark Hotel, built in Changsha, is another example of the successful use of prefab construction such as the building of the Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio which we told you about previously. Enjoy!
November 12, 2010
Contractor and Wife Use Workers’ Compensation Funds for Luxury ItemsA roofing contractor in Orange County, California who committed Workers’ Compensation Insurance fraud was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to repay $500,000 to the state insurance fund. The contractor’s wife is also charged in the case and faces a pre-trial mental health screening today. Michael Vincent Petronella, also known as Michael Constantine, and his wife Devon Lynn Kile were arrested in April 2009 following an investigation which began after one of Petronella’s employees sustained an injury on the job in March 2006. At the time Petronella and Kile owned several businesses, one of which was Western Cleanoff, Inc. The injured employee filed a claim with the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) using a payroll stub from Western Cleanoff. When SCIF saw that this was a company which they did not insure, they suspected fraud and turned the information over to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) and Department of Insurance (DOI). According to a press release from District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’ office, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, cash, and property was seized from the couple and held as collateral at the time of their arrest.
November 10, 2010
Construction Citizen recently interviewed an iron worker who is happy to be employed by Dennis Steel, Inc., a steel fabrication and erection subcontractor in Texas which has been run responsibly and with integrity by founder David Dennis for over 30 years. An example of a responsible business owner who is advancing the principles of Construction Citizen, David Dennis ensures that employees of Dennis Steel are paid good benefits and a solid wage and are provided with a safe working environment. We asked Myles Parnell, a field foreman for the company, what it was like working for Dennis Steel. He talked about the things he appreciated about working for the company including how the owner looks out for his employees by providing them with all their safety equipment, providing insurance for the employees and their families, paying a competitive pay wage and making them each feel cared for. However, Parnell explained that the price of treating his employees so well sometimes causes the company to be under-bid by less responsible companies.
November 06, 2010
The owner of a drywall company in Marysville, WA (about 40 miles north of Seattle) was convicted of a felony last week for workers’ compensation fraud and failing to report collected sales tax. He was sentenced to over 6 years in prison and taken into custody, in part for failing to provide workers’ compensation insurance for his employees. Judge Ellen J. Fair ordered Mark D. Standley to repay over $2,400,000 for these crimes he committed from 2003 to 2008. The Washington State Department of Revenue (a division of their State Department of Labor and Industries) reported that:“[Judge] Fair said the exceptional sentence was appropriate given Standley’s crime and failure to make significant restitution. She had given him a year to make restitution, including penalties and interest, to the Department of Revenue and Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). He repaid only $500.”This is yet another example of strict penalties being handed out for what has become common practice in many areas of the construction industry.
November 04, 2010
