TRENTON – An Iselin construction contractor has agreed to pay back wages totaling nearly $150,000 to 13 laborers who claimed they were expected to kick back part of their pay to a crew leader while working on prevailing wage jobs.

Fine Wall Corp. and its principals—Umukant Shah, Mrudula Shah, and Ronak Shah—also agreed to pay $64,699 in penalties and $37,060 in fees, as part of a settlement brokered by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) following an investigation. The company was barred from bidding on or engaging in public works projects for three years.
“This investigation is another example of our tireless efforts to ensure New Jersey working men and women are paid properly. Contractors who wish to work on public works jobs especially, should know we will make every effort to root out unscrupulous employers to protect workers and level the playing field for law-abiding contractors,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo.

Fine Wall had been engaged to work on 15 prevailing wage public works projects in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Morris, and Union counties. As a public works contractor, Fine Wall was required by law to pay its workers the prevailing wage, set locally, for the work they performed. A complaint by three employees who claimed they were being paid less than the prevailing wage rate on multiple public works sites triggered NJDOL’s investigation.

The back wages due to the workers varied, depending on how much each was paid for their hours of work on the prevailing wage jobs, ranging from a high of $52,210 in back pay to a low of $3.56 due. Besides the prevailing wage violations, the investigation also found that several workers were improperly classified for their craft.

This settlement comes on the heels of two recent actions demonstrating NJDOL’s bold new enforcement approach to protect taxpayers’ investment in publics projects. The Wage and Hour Division last month barred two contractors from engaging in public works projects as a result of violations in other jurisdictions, and on March 27, the state Attorney General’s Office obtained a guilty plea and recommended prison time for a public works contractor who acknowledged not paying prevailing wages on a government contract.

Trades & Media Digest

TRENTON – Several hundred union carpenters, all wearing shirts with the phrase “Standing up to Tax Fraud” emblazoned on the back, gathered in front of the Internal Revenue Service Building here for a rally to raise awareness to the amount of tax revenue lost every year due to tax fraud occurring in the construction industry.

The rally, strategically scheduled for April 15 – Tax Day – to emphasize the seriousness of the issue, was organized by the Keystone Mountain Lakes (KML) Regional Council of Carpenters and featured several members of the New Jersey Legislature, including Senator Fred H. Madden Jr. (Fourth District) and Senator Troy Singleton (Seventh District), as invited speakers.

“Tax fraud is an attack on the hard working people of this country,” said the morning’s first speaker Bill Sproule, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of KML. “It is estimated that $450 billion dollars in tax revenue is lost every year due to tax fraud. That is money that could go to build schools, infrastructure and provide services for communities.”

Tax fraud is rampant in the construction industry where companies misclassify workers, routinely neglect to pay taxes and fail to follow accepted standards to ensure jobsite safety. A common construction practice is hiring employees off-the-books, calling them independent contractors, paying less than a fair living wage, no overtime and many times without medical benefits or payment of workers compensation premiums. Federal, state and local tax authorities also lose – big time.

In a conversation following the rally, Sproule cited a 2016 Williams J. Hughes Center for Public Policy white paper titled “The Underground Construction Economy in New Jersey” to illustrate the wide-reaching effects of the problem in the Garden State.

“In New Jersey, the underground economy is anywhere from $536 million to $1.2 billion,” Sproule said. “That’s money that’s not being taxed.”

Those numbers just demonstrate activity in the construction industry. Overall, according to the study, the underground economy is estimated to be worth between $7.3 billion and $16.3 billion. Income tax lost to off-the-books employment and misclassified workers totals $20 million. More than $3 million in unemployment insurance goes unpaid.

Singleton, a democrat from Moorestown and a Council Representative with KML, believes enough is enough.

“The people who should be accountable we have to start holding them accountable,” Singleton told the crowd. “What we have to do now is stand up for the worker. We have 80 senators and 80 assemblymen and we all have to stand together and get the job done. Anyone who is not getting the job done doesn’t deserve to have the job. There should be no more money going out the back door.”

Both Sproule and Madden, who is the chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, believe a good first step would be to enforce laws already on the books.

“I believe we should take a hard look at this and call for stronger enforcement of laws we already have in place,” Madden said. “This involves a wealth of lost revenue to the state. We have laws in place with penalties, but those laws are only good if they are being enforced. I believe we should reward people who see fraud going on and report it. It is unacceptable and we have to put it in its place. Then we have to make sure we prosecute these cases.”

Monday’s Day of Action rally was one of nine held on Tax Day. Others were conducted in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh; Baltimore, Washington D.C.; Richmond and Roanoke; and Charleston, West Virginia. More have been scheduled throughout the country over the next couple days. Their purpose is to educate, but also to put pressure on states to root out and prosecute contractors who are committing tax fraud.

Monday’s rally was an important step taken to raise awareness to this critical issue. It won’t be the last.

It’s Tax Day, and New Jersey needs all of the revenue it can get. Last month, S&P Global Ratings said the state is on track for a $740 million shortfall.

Given this precarious situation, why is New Jersey leaving millions in uncollected taxes on the table?

The potential windfall stands to come from wealthy developers who take advantage of labor laws and outdated regulations to increase profit margins by abusing workers.

These millionaires are utilizing middlemen who break state and federal laws by misclassifying full-time workers as contractors, committing wage theft by paying below minimum wage, establishing illegal work weeks, paying cash and evading taxes – all to increase record profits.

A 2016 Stockton University report conservatively estimated that the developers are swindling the state out of more than $25 million in tax revenue annually. This theft involves approximately 35,000 workers who are off-the-books or illegally misclassified as independent contractors. An entire underground economy has been allowed to fester, all built on the abuse of workers and the taxpayers, for the benefit of multi-millionaires.

Under new leadership, New Jersey is making progress in cracking down on employee misclassification, worker abuse, and tax theft. Governor Murphy signed an executive order last year creating a task force on the issue, and three subsequent public meetings revealed ample evidence of widespread abuse. Last summer, the Hudson County Board of Freeholders passed a resolution decrying these practices as “not only unconscionable but illegal.” And Attorney General Grewal announced late last month that an Ocean County construction contractor pleaded guilty to purposely not paying prevailing wages.

Yet for abuse on an oceanic scale, the state is so far only focused on minnows.

Right now, there are more than a dozen active major development sites in Hudson County alone that are using an illegal business model and cheating workers. There is much more we can do to create basic fairness and economic justice and collect all of the tax revenue the state is owed.

Large development and construction companies view the paltry fines the state levies as an acceptable cost of doing business, so they are OK with paying the fines and continuing to cheat workers and taxpayers. Not only is this a large loss of revenue for the state, it creates no deterrent for abusive actors in the industry. The Labor Department needs to be given the tools to have a stronger approach to penalties and license suspensions.

And the Department of Labor needs more help from its colleagues in state government. The Attorney General’s office dedicates limited staff to working with the Labor Department on these cases, and without the teeth of prosecutorial arm, many violators know they can get away with continuing to cheat. There also needs to be more support from the Department of Treasury.

The Labor Department makes a high number of referrals to the Treasury, but too few are acted on and the threat of tax fraud prosecution – a strong deterrent – is not being employed nearly often enough. For enforcement actions to carry weight, the Labor Department needs more support from the Attorney General’s office and the Department of Treasury.

State legislators can help, too, by increasing funding for enforcement at all levels and modernizing our laws. For example, under current statute it is so difficult for the Department of Labor to obtain Stop Work Orders for worker abuse that it barely ever occurs. By comparison, Connecticut, a state 2.5 times smaller than New Jersey, has issued more than 1,500 stop work orders in the last 10 years for worker abuse. Existing statute needs to be amended to give the department a realistic ability to enforce the law by using stop work orders. There is a bill nearing passage in the legislature to rectify this issue, it should be advanced to become law as soon as possible.

After years of seeing elected officials at the highest level turn away from the issue of employee misclassification, we are glad to see the beginnings of leadership from Trenton. For the sake of blue-collar workers across the state – and for the sake of the state’s own tax revenue – that action must continue and become far more aggressive.

Looking for a career in the construction industry or to get your son or daughter interested in the construction trades? Look no further! The BACNJ will be at Construction Industry Career Day May 28, 2019.
http://www.cicdnj.org/

Last night, NJ Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg hosted a panel of fire safety experts, material and building professionals, and citizen activists to discuss how NJ can improve resident and firefighter safety in light frame multifamily (Type V) construction. Panelists included Jordan Zaretsky – Teaneck Fire Chief, Thomas Jacobson – Edgewater Fire Chief, Thomas Troy – President, NJ Builders Association, Glenn Corbett – NJ Fire Code Advisory Council, Dan Siteman, EIT – NJ Director, International Masonry Institute, and Alexi Assmus, PhD – Citizen Activist. BAC Local 4 President Ken Simone and Field Representative Steve Preziosi were in attendance as well. There is an overwhelming sense that something needs to change to protect NJ’s citizens and firefighters when it comes to large-scale lightweight stick frame construction. IMI’s Dan Siteman emphasized masonry’s unparalleled performance in fire protection. Other members of the panel called for noncombustible masonry construction and more robust NFPA 13R sprinkler systems. Senator Weinberg’s closing remarks included a call for further discussion and progress seeking a higher level of public safety in NJ.

By definition, a labor union is an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.

Meanwhile solidarity, by definition, is the unity that produces or is based on unities of interests, objectives, and standards. It refers to the ties that bind people together as one.

Theoretically and in practice the two go hand in hand, not only within individual unions, but also between all unions. The ties that bind unions together are the quest for safety standards on a job, quality of workmanship, and, of course, a fair and just wage. Solidarity is part of the foundation of the labor movement. A quote by Harry Bridges, who founded and led the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in New York City for 40 years, says all you need to know about the relationship between union and solidarity: “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.”

For devoted union members like Joe McMonigle, an organizer with the Philadelphia Plumbers Union Local 690, and Bryan Bush, Financial Secretary Treasurer/Assistant Business Manager with Sheet Metal Workers Local 19, solidarity means everything. It means standing together, brother with brother, understanding and respecting the rights of all unions and their members. But, sadly, what they are seeing, with increasing regularity, is the bond of solidarity being broken.

“It is a breakdown of what we do as unions, the very strength of which is we all stick together,” McMonigle said, adding that his local was chartered in 1931 and has never had a member cross a picket line. “For whatever the reason, crossing the picket line is a sad thing in my eyes. It breaks my heart and it’s becoming a real problem the way some locals conduct their day-to-day business because it doesn’t coexist with solidarity, with being involved. I was taught early in my apprenticeship and I try to teach others the same way that you have to understand we are strongest when we are together. Some do not teach that way. I’m seeing more and more where they are getting the okay to cross.”

Bush, who has been a business agent with Local 19 since 2009, agrees wholeheartedly with McMonigle. He has seen union members find different ways to cross lines and attempt to justify doing so even though, in his opinion and in that of many union members, there is no justification.

“It all comes from the top. By law, nobody can tell a union member to go in or stay out,” Bush explained. “It is in your blood as a union member, it is part of your backbone, not to cross that line. But if the business agent or the business manager says it’s okay, that’s where the problem starts.

“There are ways to beat the system. If a trade throws a picket line up there will then be two gates, one for non-union workers and another for union workers. By law, we can only picket at the gate where the non-union workers enter. Any good union man will see a picket line and know it���s a two-gate system. That should automatically send up a red flag. That means there is an issue, a labor dispute and he should call his business agent and ask what is going on. It’s common courtesy to call the building trades office and tell them you won’t be working on that job.

“The problem is some trades use this to their advantage. If I call the building trades office and say we have a situation and we’re setting up a picket line at 6:30 on a Wednesday, some trades will take advantage of that and tell their contractors to be on the job by six so they’re set up before we set up. They try to use the excuse they were already set up.”

Bush also relayed a story where the reverse happened. He spoke of a job at a Veterans Administration building where the elevator operators set up a picket line and all the other trades left the job until the issue were resolved.

“Whenever a picket line goes up, it should be honored,” he said. “Our strength is maintained when unions stand together. That puts pressure on the general contractor to do something and that issue gets resolved.”

The situation cited by Bush at the Veteran Administration work site is one example where unions stood together in an obvious display of solidarity. A current display can be found in New York City with the CountMeIn Movement. Its’ website features this message: “We are building a movement of rank and file members to fight back and take back our city from open shop”.

The issue there is Hudson Yards, at $26 billion it is the largest private real estate development project in the United States. Among the facts it touts on its website are the 23,000 constructions jobs it has and will continue to provide. Problem is not all of them will be filled by union laborers. The initial phase was completed, according to Mike Hellstrom, lead organizer for the CountMeIn Movement, with 100 percent union labor. That covered a five-year period from 2011 to 2016. Then, beginning in 2017, the next phase went from being totally union to a point where there is only one trade union on the job and the rest is non-union. It is an open shop and that creates obvious problems.

“In 2017 we started to get word the developer of Hudson Yards had intentions of bringing in non-union contractors,” Hellstrom said. “We had to draw a line and get back to a place that we all understood. We always stood together and fought for it and that’s what we are doing at Hudson Yards.

“I think they underestimated the commitment of the rank and file union members on the picket lines. Local 46 of the Iron Workers had the picket line up for 11 months, seven days a week, 16 hours a day. Rank and File members refused to go on the job and cross the picket line.”

The developer resorted to using non-union labor and one of the problems that causes is the concern that safety standards employed by non-union contractors are not equal to the standards practiced by union contractors and the second is the use of non-union contractors has resulted in a reliance on improperly trained labor and the pace of the project has been slowed.

“To give you an example we have a union project underway right across the street from (the latest phase of) Hudson Yards,” Hellstrom explained. “We started at the same time and eight months later we have two cranes up and they are just getting to street level.”

The CountMeIn Movement which is comprised of all the major New York City trade unions and is supported by the heads of New York’s City Building Trades, holds weekly demonstrations at various sites around the city as well as the Hudson Yards headquarters and they are regularly attended by thousands of rank and file union members. One reason they remain unified is journeymen taking apprentices under their wing and educating them.

“We encourage our journeymen to communicate with apprentices because they’ve had to fight for their rights before and they know how important it is to stand together,” Hellstom said.

Having veteran journeymen speak with younger members, and especially with apprentices is akin to laying the foundation on a skyscraper. While it is illegal to tell a union member he can not cross a picket line, a journeyman, who has been a member for a number of years and has walked the picket lines in support of what unions stand for, can impress upon the younger member, with a great deal of pride, what it means to be a union member.

At Local 19, they take it a step further. They built a one-hour informational session into the apprentices training on just this topic.

“There are a lot of different ways to instill in them the importance of unionism and honoring picket lines,” said Bush, who also stressed the value of supporting politicians who support labor like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Congressman Donald Norcross, the only union electrician elected to Congress, and the President of the New Jersey State Senate Stephen Sweeney, who is also general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.

“We talk to them about the history and the importance of unionism,” Bush continued. “We open it up to any questions. We want them to know that everything we have today is because of the people that came before them stood together.”

McMonigle echoed those sentiments and explained there is more to being a union member than having a card.

“We want them to know what we do and how we do it,” McMonigle said. “We tell them to remember the people that came before us. Having a card in your pocket doesn’t make you a member of a union, it’s your actions that make you a union member.”

As part of the celebration of National Apprenticeship Week, and keeping with the tradition begun last year at the BCIT Medford Campus to recognize the importance of apprenticeships and the building trades, BCIT West hosted the Expo on November 14, 2018 as we alternate locations each year. BCIT provides more than 30 Career Majors among which two were added within the last three years: Advanced Manufacturing and Fabrication and the School of Construction Technology. The event featured some of the best from the unions from the area and across the state to engage BCIT students in an exploration of trades from bricklaying to virtually working cranes or heavy equipment among other displays and interactive stations. The following unions and organizations were represented: Hutchinson HVAC Union Local 825 Training Center-Operating Engineers Aerotek Local 9 Plumbers and Pipefitters Construction Craft Laborers Training and Apprenticeship Fund of NJ and Del. Johnnie Whittington-Sheetmetal BAC/ADC of New Jersey Bricklayers Habitat for Humanity of Burlington County and Greater Trenton-Princeton Rowan College Burlington County Workforce Development Institute New Jersey Carpentry Training Center The event highlighted the value of apprenticeships and the trades as an outstanding option for high school graduates and adults. There are so many positions to fill with the type of skills students develop at BCIT where students earn an industry credential which can then be put to work as an apprentice. At the Expo, a few of our middle schools were present to gain the experience of getting up close and personal with many trades. We are grateful to our union shops and business partners who agreed to share their talents with the BCIT community. It was an informative, interactive and fun day.

By definition, a labor union is an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.

Meanwhile solidarity, by definition, is the unity that produces or is based on unities of interests, objectives, and standards. It refers to the ties that bind people together as one.

Theoretically and in practice the two go hand in hand, not only within individual unions, but also between all unions. The ties that bind unions together are the quest for safety standards on a job, quality of workmanship, and, of course, a fair and just wage. Solidarity is part of the foundation of the labor movement. A quote by Harry Bridges, who founded and led the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in New York City for 40 years, says all you need to know about the relationship between union and solidarity: “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.”

For devoted union members like Joe McMonigle, an organizer with the Philadelphia Plumbers Union Local 690, and Bryan Bush, Financial Secretary Treasurer/Assistant Business Manager with Sheet Metal Workers Local 19, solidarity means everything. It means standing together, brother with brother, understanding and respecting the rights of all unions and their members. But, sadly, what they are seeing, with increasing regularity, is the bond of solidarity being broken.

“It is a breakdown of what we do as unions, the very strength of which is we all stick together,” McMonigle said, adding that his local was chartered in 1931 and has never had a member cross a picket line. “For whatever the reason, crossing the picket line is a sad thing in my eyes. It breaks my heart and it’s becoming a real problem the way some locals conduct their day-to-day business because it doesn’t coexist with solidarity, with being involved. I was taught early in my apprenticeship and I try to teach others the same way that you have to understand we are strongest when we are together. Some do not teach that way. I’m seeing more and more where they are getting the okay to cross.”

Bush, who has been a business agent with Local 19 since 2009, agrees wholeheartedly with McMonigle. He has seen union members find different ways to cross lines and attempt to justify doing so even though, in his opinion and in that of many union members, there is no justification.

“It all comes from the top. By law, nobody can tell a union member to go in or stay out,” Bush explained. “It is in your blood as a union member, it is part of your backbone, not to cross that line. But if the business agent or the business manager says it’s okay, that’s where the problem starts.

“There are ways to beat the system. If a trade throws a picket line up there will then be two gates, one for non-union workers and another for union workers. By law, we can only picket at the gate where the non-union workers enter. Any good union man will see a picket line and know it’s a two-gate system. That should automatically send up a red flag. That means there is an issue, a labor dispute and he should call his business agent and ask what is going on. It’s common courtesy to call the building trades office and tell them you won’t be working on that job.

“The problem is some trades use this to their advantage. If I call the building trades office and say we have a situation and we’re setting up a picket line at 6:30 on a Wednesday, some trades will take advantage of that and tell their contractors to be on the job by six so they’re set up before we set up. They try to use the excuse they were already set up.”

Bush also relayed a story where the reverse happened. He spoke of a job at a Veterans Administration building where the elevator operators set up a picket line and all the other trades left the job until the issue were resolved.

“Whenever a picket line goes up, it should be honored,” he said. “Our strength is maintained when unions stand together. That puts pressure on the general contractor to do something and that issue gets resolved.”

The situation cited by Bush at the Veteran Administration work site is one example where unions stood together in an obvious display of solidarity. A current display can be found in New York City with the CountMeIn Movement. Its’ website features this message: “We are building a movement of rank and file members to fight back and take back our city from open shop”.

The issue there is Hudson Yards, at $26 billion it is the largest private real estate development project in the United States. Among the facts it touts on its website are the 23,000 constructions jobs it has and will continue to provide. Problem is not all of them will be filled by union laborers. The initial phase was completed, according to Mike Hellstrom, lead organizer for the CountMeIn Movement, with 100 percent union labor. That covered a five-year period from 2011 to 2016. Then, beginning in 2017, the next phase went from being totally union to a point where there is only one trade union on the job and the rest is non-union. It is an open shop and that creates obvious problems.

“In 2017 we started to get word the developer of Hudson Yards had intentions of bringing in non-union contractors,��� Hellstrom said. “We had to draw a line and get back to a place that we all understood. We always stood together and fought for it and that’s what we are doing at Hudson Yards.

“I think they underestimated the commitment of the rank and file union members on the picket lines. Local 46 of the Iron Workers had the picket line up for 11 months, seven days a week, 16 hours a day. Rank and File members refused to go on the job and cross the picket line.”

The developer resorted to using non-union labor and one of the problems that causes is the concern that safety standards employed by non-union contractors are not equal to the standards practiced by union contractors and the second is the use of non-union contractors has resulted in a reliance on improperly trained labor and the pace of the project has been slowed.

“To give you an example we have a union project underway right across the street from (the latest phase of) Hudson Yards,” Hellstrom explained. “We started at the same time and eight months later we have two cranes up and they are just getting to street level.”

The CountMeIn Movement which is comprised of all the major New York City trade unions and is supported by the heads of New York’s City Building Trades, holds weekly demonstrations at various sites around the city as well as the Hudson Yards headquarters and they are regularly attended by thousands of rank and file union members. One reason they remain unified is journeymen taking apprentices under their wing and educating them.

“We encourage our journeymen to communicate with apprentices because they’ve had to fight for their rights before and they know how important it is to stand together,” Hellstom said.

Having veteran journeymen speak with younger members, and especially with apprentices is akin to laying the foundation on a skyscraper. While it is illegal to tell a union member he can not cross a picket line, a journeyman, who has been a member for a number of years and has walked the picket lines in support of what unions stand for, can impress upon the younger member, with a great deal of pride, what it means to be a union member.

At Local 19, they take it a step further. They built a one-hour informational session into the apprentices training on just this topic.

“There are a lot of different ways to instill in them the importance of unionism and honoring picket lines,” said Bush, who also stressed the value of supporting politicians who support labor like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Congressman Donald Norcross, the only union electrician elected to Congress, and the President of the New Jersey State Senate Stephen Sweeney, who is also general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.

“We talk to them about the history and the importance of unionism,” Bush continued. “We open it up to any questions. We want them to know that everything we have today is because of the people that came before them stood together.”

McMonigle echoed those sentiments and explained there is more to being a union member than having a card.

“We want them to know what we do and how we do it,” McMonigle said. “We tell them to remember the people that came before us. Having a card in your pocket doesn’t make you a member of a union, it’s your actions that make you a union member.”

While working on the College Hall building at Montclair State University, BACNJ Local #4 members discovered a bottle with a message in it deep within the wall cavity.

It’s a little tough to read so we have translated it for you…

Montclair Heights, NJ
July 3rd 1907
This is to certify that this wall was built by two bricklayers from Newark, NJ

by the name of William Hanly and James Lennon members of Loc 3 of the B.M.I.U. of America and P W Lynch was also involved on the job.