Tuesday, April 15, 2014

City contractors cheat workers out of prevailing wages

From the Daily News:

The mayor's campaign to build more affordable apartments has a dirty little underbelly: Many of the contractors who build cheaper units have been cited repeatedly for cheating workers out of a decent wage, a Daily News investigation has found.

Last week, Mayor de Blasio promised to “lift up working families” with soon-to-be built affordable apartments the city is sponsoring on a vacant lot in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

But at an affordable housing project a few blocks away, builder MDG Design and subcontractor F. Rizos, settled federal wage-cheating charges in April 2013 by agreeing to pay $960,000 in back wages.

Just one month later, MDG was hit with more wage-cheating charges on another city project, this time for $4.5 million in back wages, a city record.

Yet MDG was chosen by the former Bloomberg administration that very month to turn a city-owned warehouse in Williamsburg into 55 affordable apartments and stands to build hundreds more in the coming years.

Many taxpayer-funded developments in New York City require contractors and their subcontractors to pay “prevailing wages.” Some contractors jump through hoops to avoid this.

2 comments:

J said...

the scamming of the working man continues under the false progress promises of zero vision mayor.

where are the officials?this graft was supposed to stop when the fun size mayor left.

I'm not going to move to brownsville so I can still afford to live here.
some new legislation has to be drawn for 100% affordable units.

Anonymous said...

Leaving aside the politics, can someone explain why the "market" wage is different than the "prevailing" wage?