A fight between some construction companies and Texas bankers may have to wait until the next legislative session to be resolved. That was the tone of a hearing this week in the Texas Senate where bankers made the case that even though it sounds like a simple concept, it is a tough issue when you “get into the weeds” of it.Construction trade groups, chiefly the Texas Construction Association, support a bill by Senator Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, which would require lenders to give notice when funding is being pulled from a project. Deuell said that he felt all the stakeholders had negotiated in good faith to try to craft legislation that solves the problem. Testimony was offered Tuesday morning to the effect that when a lender decides there will be no more disbursement of funds on a project, they are not required to notify any of the companies doing the work. Sometimes weeks or months go by before the construction companies on a project realize they are not going to be paid for that work.Rich Thomas, a construction lawyer in Dallas, testified before the Senate Business and Commerce Committee stating, "The problem is in the rare situation whenever there's a default.” He said in the event a lender makes the decision to stop funding a project, construction companies get the short end of the stick. "When the lender does not tell the general contractor, that's wrong," he said.

Major Texas homebuilders came out against the state's moves toward cracking down on worker misclassification during a legislative hearing on Wednesday. The Leading Builders of America, which represents Perry Homes, David Weekley Homes, and others, argued that putting new regulations in place for the industry would lead to higher home prices and stifle job creation.Steve Henry, speaking for the Leading Builders of America, the trade group that represents Perry and Weekley, said the crackdown on payroll fraud would not only lead to increased home prices, but it would also increase litigation, deter the creation of small businesses and stifle job creation. Andrew Turner, representing the same trade group, said it is a "confusion of an already confusing area of the law." He said the Workforce Commission already has the ability to deal with misclassification. “It’s not fair to single out this industry,” he said. He said that if the legislation were passed, more people would have to be paid as employees instead of independent subcontractors.  

Following at least a month of weekly stakeholders meetings, Senator John Carona is set to lay out his vision for dealing with worker misclassification in a Texas Senate committee next Tuesday.The Dallas Republican's Senate Bill 676 is the result of balancing the need to fix the problem against the concerns of some players within the construction industry who don't want to the bill to go too far. The sticking points have included whether the state should create its own definition for subcontractor – rather than just stick with the IRS definition – and whether the specific amount for penalties should be written into the statute or set by the Workforce Commission on a case-by-case basis. The Texas Association of Business would prefer the latter option.In the Texas House on Wednesday, Representative John Davis presented to the Economic & Small Business Development Committee his bill on this issue.  

Construction companies that get any government contracts in Texas may soon face penalties if they don't do a certain amount of safety training. Senator Bob Deuell, a Republican physician from Greenville, said his bill, SB 167, makes business sense as well as offers protections for workers."Other states and other places where they do that kind of training - they just cut down on their injuries. I don't think it's too cumbersome on businesses. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," he said. "The business community, I think, supports it. It costs them a lot more to deal with injuries than it costs to pay for training. There will be some people who don't like it but the data is there. If I were running a business I would just be doing it anyway."20 years ago, Senator Deuell helped shape a worker safety training plan for the Rubbermaid plant in Greenville, Texas. He said it was good for the workers and the company's bottom line. "Their workers' compensation claims just went down really, really low," he said.