Construction on the cheap

Under New York City law, construction contractors working on public projects must pay workers a prevailing wage set by the city. The prevailing wage varies depending on the job and ranges from $28.05 to $70.62 per hour.

Officials of Building Firm Accused of Cheating Workers and City

May Construction lured many of its employees with an advertisement in the Polish-language newspaper Nowy Dziennik, according to the attorney general’s office. Most of the company’s workers were secured through those advertisements and were each paid the minimum of the prevailing wage, even though the jobs they were doing required they be paid higher wages, the attorney general’s office said.

The construction projects included work on Staten Island Borough Hall; providing central air conditioning to parts of Staten Island Criminal Court; renovating parking lots for the Queens Borough Hall; removing carpet and installing floor tiles at 60 Centre Street, a State Supreme Court building in Manhattan; and installing doors at 100 Centre Street, the courthouse where Mr. Aronson and Mr. Branca were arraigned.