El Paso has become the second city in Texas where an employer has been arrested and indicted on charges of wage theft. The Texas Observer reports that El Paso is the only city in the state that has an active wage theft task force. It includes the police and sheriff's departments as well as the County Attorney and District Attorney's offices.

From the Observer:

“It’s huge because we’re finally treating the stealing of someone’s wages the same way we treat someone stealing from Target or Albertsons or [any] store,” says Jed Untereker, an attorney with Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project who represented the employee.

The Construction Career Collaborative (C³) recently held a Sponsors’ Meeting to provide an opportunity to update supporters on progress made toward advancing the principles of C³.

Jim Stevenson, Chairman of C³, provided some highlights of accomplishments to date.  These include:

• Enlistment of two Beta Project Owners – Texas Children’s Hospital and MD Anderson – involving
  • Four Contractors
  • Numerous Specialty Contractors
  • Hundreds of Craft Workers
• Development of a toolkit for participants
• An application for accreditation (under development)
• Development of an online C³-5 Safety Training
• Qualification of 46 Safety Trainers at 23 companies
• Development of a job description and funding model through a loaned staff member
• Preparation of By-Laws and Policies in order to file as a 501(c)(3) organization
• Continued spreading the word to add other project Owners

In addition, the C³ Marketing Committee members, John Stautner and Michele Buckingham, facilitated a discussion with sponsors on ways in which C³ supporters might engage and participate in advancing C³ principles to their members and to the community.  Read more » about C3 Supporters Come Together

Our mission at Construction Citizen is straightforward: To advance a socially responsible, sustainable, value added construction industry.  Doing that is anything but simple. We are owners, contractors and craftspeople committed to this mission and we can’t do it alone. This is a community effort and we think of you, our readers, as part of that community. That’s why we’re asking you to help us highlight the good and the bad within our industry. 

To that end, we’ve launched the Construction Citizen News Tip Line. It’s an anonymous way for you to point our team in the direction with things you see happening that need to be brought to light. We understand that there are many in the industry that feel – as we do – that safety violations, misclassification of workers, bad treatment of employees, and other problems need to be rooted out. But, we also understand the need for anonymity.  If you contribute to our coverage, we promise your identity will be kept secret. We will only use your contact information to follow up with any questions our team might have. Or, you can simply leave us a news tip without your information. That might make it harder to look into things, but we’ll do our best. Read more » about Construction Citizen’s News Tip Line

The American Subcontractors Association (ASA) held their Spring Business Forum and Convention in Las Vegas this past weekend. At the event, the ASA announced nine companies as this year’s winners of the Excellence in Ethics Award.

According to the committee:

“ASA’s Excellence in Ethics Awards program promotes the highest standards of internal and external integrity for a subcontracting firm, said Shannon MacArthur, MEMCO, Spring, Texas, chair of the ASA Task Force on Ethics in the Construction Industry, which developed the awards program. Each applicant was required to respond to questions concerning the firm’s corporate ethics policies and procedures, its construction practices, and its general business practices. Each applicant also was required to submit detailed documentation, including sealed letters of recommendation from a customer, a competitor and a supplier.”

This year’s winners are: Read more » about 2012 American Subcontractors Association Excellence in Ethics Awards