Swindled workers will be paid after settlement

From AM-NY:

Three Queens construction companies have pleaded guilty to withholding more than $370,000 from 150 workers, according to state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The companies, Lotus-C Corporation of Jackson Heights, Johnco Contracting Inc. of Bayside, and RCM Painting Inc. of Maspeth, failed to provide workers with overtime wages between 2012 and 2017. Additionally, the employers had the workers, who were painters, sign a form stating that they were independent contractors instead of employees, the attorney general said.

The companies also underreported their staff numbers to the state, which resulted in major underpayment of unemployment contributions to the state, Schneiderman said.

As part of their plea deal the owners of the companies have dissolved their offices and are banned for five years from bidding on public works contracts in New York State. They will also pay a total of $371,447.01 for unpaid wages and $359,747.86 in unpaid unemployment contributions to the State Department of Labor, the attorney general said.

Employers and landlords now forced to use made-up pronouns

From NY1:

Businesses and landlords across the city must now refer to transgender people by their preferred pronouns or risk a big fine.

The guidelines, issued by the city's Commission on Human Rights in December, list some of the acceptable, gender-neutral pronouns.

They include "ze", which stands in for "he" or "she."

Another example is "hir," which is similar to "they".

The city says employers and landlords will violate the guidelines if they repeatedly or intentionally refuse to use someone's preferred pronoun.

They can also face fines as high as $250,000 if the refusal is considered malicious.

It's only a matter of time before not using these weird words will get you charged with a hate crime. When exactly did we lose our collective minds?

Good jobs sit out there unfilled

From Crains:

Thousands of New York City health care and technology jobs that require middle-level skills could be filled if companies embrace an employer-led, sector-based workforce development initiative, according to an analysis by JPMorgan Chase.

The financial powerhouse crunched data on the misalignment of jobs and skills in the two sectors as part of a five-year, $250 million New Skills at Work initiative. Among the findings: About 45% of all open job postings listed in the city between July 2013 and June 2014 were middle-skill jobs in health care and information technology.

Those health care postings go unfilled for more than a month, compared with a few weeks for entry-level positions. Analysts estimated there will be 44,000 new job openings annually for middle-skill workers in the city over the next five years.

The health care and technology sectors both have a strong concentration of high-demand, high-growth, middle-skill occupations. There are about 423,000 health care workers in the city, with a projected 14% growth rate over the next five years. In the technology sector, middle-skill jobs account for 16% of all of middle-skill job postings in the city, or about 8,100 jobs.

Maybe if middle class residents weren't taxed to death and had housing they could afford, they'd fill these jobs faster.

Duh.

More litigation possible if people don't get hired

From Crains:

A City Council bill barring employers from asking job candidates if they have ever been convicted of a crime is meant to help felons re-enter society.

But the fine print of the initiative could lead to lawsuits against employers, according to one legal expert.

The bill, which is likely to become law in some form, would prohibit the commonly used "check boxes" on job applications that ask about past convictions. It also would forbid employers from asking questions about an applicant's criminal history until a conditional job offer has been tendered.

A number of states have similar laws. But Mark Goldstein, a labor and employment attorney at Reed Smith LLP, says New York City’s would go further, as it would cover businesses with as few as four employees—placing new burdens on small employers. By contrast, New Jersey's recently passed law applies to businesses with 15 or more workers.

The bigger concern is lawsuits from job seekers. To be able to reject an applicant because of a past conviction, employers would have to go through a rigorous process that, if not followed, would result in the presumption that a business owner engaged in unlawful discrimination, Mr. Goldstein said.

“I think you’d see some increases in litigation, and this is not exactly a well-settled area of law,” he said.

Immigrants are frequently scam victims

From the Daily News:

A Mexican immigrant hunting for a job in Queens hands over $120 cash as an upfront fee to a clerk at an employment agency.

But when she shows up at the restaurant that the clerk told her was hiring and asks for Mr. Lopez the manager, there is no Mr. Lopez. And they aren’t hiring anyway.

The scene is fiction — acted out before more than 100 people this spring during a forum at an East Side church — but it’s based on actual experiences.

The set is based on businesses located along Queens’ Roosevelt Ave. — where informal job agencies often illegally share space with other enterprises.

The play aims to educate immigrant New Yorkers about exploitative employment agencies — which scam them by charging a fee and not actually delivering employment or placing them in jobs that pay below minimum wage.

The problem is widespread among the more than 300 licensed and hundreds more unlicensed employment agencies in the city, according to immigrant advocates.

In a 2012 survey, New Immigrant Community Empowerment found that 81% of Latino immigrants in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona who use employment agencies had paid fees but didn’t get a job or a refund.

Large-scale fraud found at Seedco

From the NY Times:

City investigators have discovered evidence of large-scale fraud in one of the agencies leading Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s signature initiative to find jobs for unemployed New Yorkers.

The Department of Investigation found that Seedco, a nonprofit organization that frequently works with the Bloomberg administration, falsely claimed to have helped at least 1,400 people — out of about 6,500 — find jobs; those people are in fact jobless or found employment on their own.

Seedco “developed systematic practices to report false placements” to the city’s Department of Small Business Services, according to a report on the investigation that was released on Friday.

The Department of Investigation noted that the number of fraudulent claims could be much higher, because Seedco, with permission from the city, shredded job placement documents between 2008 and February 2011.

Federal prosecutors have begun their own inquiry and have interviewed several former Seedco employees. Seedco is cooperating with that inquiry, the agency president, Barbara Dwyer Gunn, said through a spokesman.

The reports of fraud come as a blow to Mr. Bloomberg, who sought a third term based on his ability to lead the city in a tough economy and has heralded his administration’s success in finding jobs for unemployed New Yorkers. The mayor has praised the role nonprofit groups, paid by the city, have had in the jobs effort.

The news is also troubling for Seedco, a well-regarded nonprofit organization that has stood at the heart of many of the mayor’s initiatives, including job placement and cash grants for welfare clients, and loan programs for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The small business commissioner announced on Friday that the city would transfer Seedco’s $7 million annual contract to another nonprofit organization.

It's about time...

From Fox 5:

The Obama administration has extended its crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying 500 companies across the nation in recent weeks that the government will inspect their hiring records.

The surge in so-called silent raids is the first to occur in the government's new fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. In the year ended Sept. 30, the US audited 2,496 companies, topping the previous year's tally of 2,196.

The audits of employee records by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, can lead firms to lose large numbers of employees and face lower productivity and steep legal fees.

The audits can result in civil and criminal penalties. Companies can be fined, barred from competing for government contracts and be hit with criminal charges of knowingly employing illegal workers and evading taxes.

An ICE spokeswoman confirmed that employers across the US had been asked to turn over their I-9 employment eligibility forms and other documents to the agency.

ICE did not name the businesses being investigated.