A Sustainable Workforce Starts With You

Worker Misclassification

Payroll fraud (also called worker misclassification and workplace fraud) is the illegal practice of designating an employee as a "1099 worker" or an independent contractor. Unscrupulous employers do this to avoid paying payroll taxes, unemployment tax, or workers’ compensation insurance and are therefore able to submit lower bids for projects, undercutting responsible contractors. Several states have already passed laws to penalize those who cheat workers and taxing agencies in this way.

When someone tells you a lie are you offended?  Do you wonder whether they feel wrong for telling you a lie?  What makes something of importance right or wrong?  Is...
Construction Citizen attended a lecture this week about Ethical Dilemmas in Construction Industry Labor Practices at Texas A&M University along with over 275 students and...
Lawrence Rebman, director of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, spelled it out very clearly in his recent Director’s Spotlight entitled Worker...
In a January 19th Houston Chronicle article entitled, Working: A plea for fair play, L.M. Sixel discusses how due to the economy, many construction companies are resorting to...
The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is considering interagency collaboration to step up enforcement of worker misclassification violations in Texas, a point they discussed in a...
Cyndi Mergele, Senior Manager at Padgett, Stratemann & Co., L.L.P. in San Antonio, wrote an interesting article for the Construction News, a newspaper focusing on the...
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...
According to an article in the Albany Times Union last week, the returning New York legislature is close to passing a state-wide law against wage theft.  If they pass it and...
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.  ...