2021-06-08 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
2021-06-08 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
mm
is uh streamed live. So if you're following along, please keep13 that in mind. Um the hearing will be recorded and it will be broadcast and stored19 on the Legislature's website for future viewing. We ask those who are testifying to keep your remarks to three minutes or less Emily Reynolds, our labor council will in the chat here will be notifying speakers when your time is close to ending and then once it has ended, I will try not to interrupt people. So please try to wrap it up once you hit the three40 minute mark. I will if need be but we do have a lot of folks who wish to testify today and we want to make sure that we have room in time for everyone to do so I would50 just say if anyone has additional remarks that they would like to share and not able to to share within the three minute window. We welcome and would be delighted to have additional written testimony. Um reminder to keep yourself on mute if you're not64 testifying and if you're not a member of the committee, it is helpful if you, if you can take turn off your video when you're not testifying so that members can see. Um, I would also remind you when you are testifying to turn on your mute, uh, to turn off your turn on your, your audio so we can hear80 you. We've all, we've all done that before, including myself. Hopefully I'm not doing that right now. Um, for those who wish to, who88 did not sign up already to testify but would still like to do so please write your name, uh, an organization in the bill number in the chat and our staff will review that there is a chat feature for those who are joining the100 hearing, virtually. The committee staff will use it to let people know who's signed up to testify and to let speakers know when they have their time is up. Uh, remind folks that the chat is public and please be respectful of everyone. Uh, we do we do have some individuals who will be testifying in a language other than english and we have made accommodations to uh, to make sure that we can welcome them. And also we have some translated versions of their testimony that will be sharing, I believe on a split screen, so that everyone can can benefit from that. If anyone has any other accommodation requests that we can help you with, please uh, have not already made that request. Please let our staff no. In the chat. So with that, I think we've gotten through all the housekeeping matters. Wanted to introduce147 uh, members of the committee. I'll start with the House side and then we'll turn it over to the Senate. I'm joined and I apologize to any House members who I do not call. I'm trying to scan through the the video is here to see everyone. I know we have a representative steve all Torino from the 33rd Middlesex district. Representative Jonathan Zlotnik from the second Worcester district, Representative Donald wang the ranking minority member from the ninth ss ethic essex district. Excuse me. Um and um did I miss any House members? I'm sure you've got a text in a moment. Representative James Hawkins from the second bristol district And uh we have representative John Rogers uh189 from the 12th Norfolk District on our representative from win our vice chair from the 18th Essex District. Um and I think I am caught up. So we have almost a full contingent of House members here, which is terrific. This is obviously an important issue in this hearing attendance that reflects that.208 So at this point I'd like to turn it over to my distinguished Senate chair, Patricia Jalen to introduce herself213 and her members. Hi, I'm kat gel in in the Senate chair of this committee. And I am joined here today by our Senate vice chair Jim tim multi. Uh Oh my God, excuse me, Can I erase that and welcome walter Tumulty! Oh my God!
Okay,
madame! Sherry. It's all good. Yeah. All right. Uh and Senator Timothy has always has a great background there, so Excellent. Um All right. So I think we've been yeah, right down the hall from each other. We should, Yes. Yes. Uh so I think we've introduced everyone. If I missed anyone again. My apologies. I'm trying to scan quickly. Please let me know. So with that we'll we'll commence the substantive portion of our meeting. As we customarily do. We do try to allow legislators to take a chance to go in the front just because we are mindful of the many responsibility they have and we do have a few legislators who are signed up to testify. But before we dive into that, we have a distinguished guest as well who I understand is here now who wishes to testify. We're very pleased to have our own massachusetts. Attorney general Maura healey, who is here to join us and offer some testimony, Madam. Attorney General. Uh, good morning.
MAURA HEALEY - ATTORNEY GENERAL, MASSACHUSETTS - SB 1177 - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Good morning, Chairman Cutler. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. To Chairwoman Jehlen309 and members of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, I really appreciate your efforts, your hard work of315 you and your teams and I appreciate being able to speak on this important matter today. I'm320 also privileged to be joined by Lauren Moran, who's chief of324 my Fair Labor division. She's on, happy to answer any questions as well. I also want to thank Shane Randall policy advisor in my office who I know many of you have worked with closely over the years. Today, I'm here in support of Senate Bill 1177, an act relative to enhanced enforcement of civil penalties, which I co sponsored with Senator DiDomenico.
I also want to express my support for Senate Bill 1179 and House Bill 1959, the wage theft bills filed by Senator DiDomenico and Representative Donahue. Lauren, who I mentioned leads a team of Attorneys and investigators in my office who have been enforcing our state wage and hour laws. These are laws that govern access to wages, overtime, earned sick time and the prevailing wage. But for these laws to be effective, we need strong enforcement tools, we need these tools to ensure that workers are compensated for the hours that they've worked so that they can support themselves and their families.
To level the playing field for businesses that play by the rules and follow the398 law, to protect the state from lost revenue in the form of taxes, workers compensation and unemployment insurance contributions and to prevent an undue burden on taxpayer funded social safety net programs. I know you know this well, and I appreciate all the time and attention the committee's spent looking at these issues, we know too, especially amidst this pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, we've seen massive job loss. Our fair labor team in the office, though, has continued to be hard at work. Just last year, we received over 14,000 calls from workers, fielded over 4000 complaints.
In fiscal year 20, we ordered $6.7 million in restitution impacting nearly 12,000 workers across Massachusetts. In addition, we mandated that violators pay 5.7 million in penalties to the General455 Fund. Yet some estimate that workers lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year still to wage theft in Massachusetts. I want to thank the Legislature for giving my office the resources that we've sought year after year to do the work that we need to do to enforce our wage and hour laws. I am grateful for that and we will continue to work hard. I'm also here to say that we need to do more as a state to combat wage theft and that's what this legislation is about.
You see, to me, the enhanced enforcement legislation is so necessary to help police this practice and end this practice of essentially stealing wages from hardworking people here in our state. The Senate Bill 1177 would allow attorneys in my office to enforce wage violations in Superior Court, just like we do when we file consumer protection actions or environmental protection actions. We don't have the same ability, though when517 it comes to wage enforcement, to go directly to Superior Court, we need that power and we need that means to be able to go in and get quick action.
Together, these bills will give my office the full complement of tools and remedies available through the court system, including injunctive relief, especially relevant given the proliferation of arbitration agreements and class action waivers that are now imposed on workers, which really seek to severely diminish workers ability to go to court to address violations of our wage and hour laws. So I want to say, we continue to be grateful for the support you've given us. We've translated all our materials into six different languages to reflect the diversity of our workforce across the560 state so that language access will never be a barrier for workers who need help.
I'm also proud that the fair labor division in my office has fluency in eight different language. Again, so important to our ability to protect people here in this state. I want to continue to work with my community engagement division who's held online workshops throughout the pandemic, providing important information to workers, and we're going to continue with the wage theft clinics that we've had going in Boston, Springfield and New Bedford. I want to thank all the stakeholders that we worked closely with throughout discussions around the wage theft bill. Passing strong, smart and effective wage theft legislation is a priority for me, it's why I am grateful for the privilege to testify before you today.
We remain available and committed to sharing our experience with this committee, we look forward to working with you and all stakeholders to address the wage theft problem we all recognize. Again, I am grateful for the work, the support for my division in fair labor, we will continue that wage theft enforcement work but I'm here today to say it's635 simply not enough to keep up with what we're seeing out there, which is why640 we need new tools, new accountability, new deterrence and I believe that643 we can644 get there through this legislation. This is simply about making sure that people who do the work get paid, it's good for families, it's good for our economy and it's right and fair for a level playing field when it comes to business. So I hope to work together in partnership with you and stakeholders to get this done this session. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and I'm happy to answer any questions. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great, thank you very much. Just reminded the members, if you do, if you would like to ask a question, if you could use the the thumbs up or the question function in your chat here, I will keep an eye out for that or you can put it in the chat if if you prefer. Uh so does anyone have any questions for our Distinguished Attorney General?
I see one. Okay. uh Senator J. Allen. And
don't forget on mute. Senator
SEN JEHLEN - Thank you, Chair Cutler and thank you, Attorney General Healey. I would like you to describe what barriers exist now711 to enforcing wage staffed law that would be removed by this legislation.719
HEALEY - Thank you, Chairwoman Jehlen. I also ask our chief of our fair labor division Lauren Moran727 to offer her perspective because again, these are the teams that that are doing the work in our office. I think a couple of things, you know, in the context of work, for example, think about a construction project, you have in our experience, a general contractor and then any number of subcontractors and what ends up744 happening is that we find ourselves in situations where people749 may be the last ones in or the last few in. You can look at the drywall subcontractors for example, they may end up not paying their workers, they come to our office to complain understandably, those workers and we try to get them relief, but the drywall operator is already out the door, has no money, he is gone.
Some of these are fly by night operations, so to speak. There stood up quickly and they move on to the next site and on to the next site so we're not able to get relief from them. The concern is there are people doing jobs that are known not to make good on what they need to make good for their employees, for their workers. So what, for example, joint liability would do and I hope we can get there, Madam Chair in a way that accounts for some of the concerns of industry but also provides the necessary deterrence, which is to say people on these jobs and people contracting these jobs need to make sure that those doing the jobs are held accountable and following the law here in the state.
So that is a barrier, you've got, you know, a lot of these subs that just are set up and they move quickly and they shut down quickly and then you chase them and you can't really get them, and when you do get them, they've got no money. So that's part of what I think is important. Legislation to me, you know, I think about accountability and the form of accountability, we're going to go after you if you steal somebody's wages, but also the deterrence function and the policing function. What I guess I'm saying to you humbly is that within the resources of my office, as much work as we're doing and the team is working incredibly hard. Again, I'm grateful for the enhanced support that the Legislature has given us.
It's still not enough because millions and millions of dollars are being literally stolen taken from people's pockets here in this state. That's an issue. Another issue quickly865 is what happens when you are a worker and you're not able to properly, you know, pursue your claim? We've got a lot of arbitration agreements, we've got a lot of waiver agreements that keep workers from being able to seek redress in court. This legislation would deal with that. This legislation in providing whistleblower protection and providing also the means to go to court, will, will also help. Finally, I would say that it takes a while for things to work their way through Dalla, the administrative law agency that where we898 has an office have to file our claims are civil claims against employers.
Months, years, this is too long to wait for people who are out of real money. We want to eliminate that barrier by having the ability in cases that we select to go916 right to superior court, as we do when they're trying to protect people's civil rights or protect against environmental pollution or protect consumers. We'd like the same ability to be able to go right to Superior court to protect our workers. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Lauren if the if the chair allows. I don't know if there's anything that I've missed.
I think you had all the glad to hear from Lauren. If940 if you would like to add anything. Mm I appreciate the opportunity. I think you hit all the big points. So that was great. Thank you. Great. I think our vice chair trauma in had a question.
REP NGUYEN - Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and thank you too, Madam Attorney General as well as Chief Moran for being here. I did some wage theft work before too. I know that there's hesitation to report these things, but do you have a sense of how widespread it is and why it's so urgent to push for this bill now, especially as we're coming out the pandemic and people are going back to work and we hope to give them the support that they need.
HEALEY - Well, thank you for that question. Lauren, feel free to share any statistics. I'll say it's millions of dollars a year, millions and millions of dollars a year here in Massachusetts and hundreds of millions of dollars when we're talking about looking across the country. Part of the problem is also that it's happening, but it's undetected. There may be hesitancy in coming forward and reporting some of this which is why, you know, we're turning to you again to ask for support for this kind of legislation, but it's widespread. I mean, those are not small numbers I just gave you in terms of, you know,1012 the citation amounts and what we've recovered for individual workers and behind each worker, remember, to me, I think of it as you do stands a whole family who's looking for that. So you can say 12 million workers and I look at that as, 12,000 workers we helped last year. I look at that as, you know, 12,000 families and what that means. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
cheap around anything you want to add.
Um,
LAUREN MORAN - ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE - So we received over 6000 complaints a year consistently. I think we're on target for the same number, despite Covid and despite many of businesses being set down this year. I would just say with the economy sort of where it is right now, and people being sort of really vulnerable in their1063 workplace in a way that they might not have been prior to Covid. It's sort of even more important that we have all these tools and that workers on their own that want to do it on their own can. It will be stopped because of class action waivers, arbitrates and waivers that they've signed. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Yeah. Senator1077 Jalen. Did you have another follow up?
JEHLEN - It was just to follow up on the Attorney General's point about deterrence, you're hoping that joint liability would deter general contractors from hiring fly by night subcontractors, are you hoping to deter the subcontractors or the contractors or both?
HEALEY - Both and I think that's the essence of joint employer liability as well. We share,1106 in my view a common goal of ensuring that workers are paid for their labor, are paid for their work. Where a contractor hires subcontractors to complete a project or provide a service and one of those subs fails in its obligation to pay timely and accurate wages, there needs to be a fair and sensible mechanism to ensure that those workers are compensated for their labor. In our experience, I use the drywall example, in our experience, the problem is down the line when subs don't do that, when they don't pay in a timely accurate way or they don't pay at all, there is no effective way to go and get those wages for the1158 workers who earned them.
So I believe that there is a way to do this through joint employer liability where there are ways to keep control on what subs are doing to not hire1170 subs who don't play by the rules because I also find that really galling. There are so many good contractors out there and so many good folks and this is not by the way limited in1183 any way, shape or form to the construction industry. Of course, this legislation would extend across all industries, but1188 to me, you know, I hear complaints from so many of the good actors out there who are just being undercut in bids and undercut in work because there are others out there not playing by the rules, that's not fair to them either. Which is why I think it's just really important that we come together to try to work to see this legislation SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
through.
Great, thank you. Any other members have any questions? I see none. I'll just in conclusion, uh I want to thank you madam, Attorney General for the work you've done specifically on this issue for coming forward today. And also I just want to thank your staff.1233 They've been great to work with from from our committee point of view chain and Lauren and the whole team really appreciate the cooperation collaboration. So I think it's important for you know that so again, I want to thank you for coming in testifying and appreciate your comments today. Well, many1247 thanks to the committee and we continue to be here to work with you and with all the stakeholders and this. Thank you. Great. All right, so we will move on. Uh we have next up Senator Sala di Domenico, uh who is testify on the same bill I believe.
SEN DIDOMENICO - SB 1177 - SB 1959 - Thank you, Chair Cutler and Chair Jehlen. Thank you for taking me and I'm very happy we had the Attorney General go first. She explained everything, but I'm going to go touch on a few points as well to go1283 over a couple of bills that she mentioned that I've sponsored. The first one is Senate bill 1179, this is the wage theft bill. You know, we have strong wage and hour laws in our commonwealth and Attorney General as you heard, committed to enforcing them but those laws were designed to protect workers at a time when the direct employer employee relationship was the norm. Now, when I wanted an economy work is often outsourced from a general or a lead contractors1309 and subcontractors. This is true in many industries, especially construction.
Our laws must adapt with our workforce. An issue with this scheme is that subcontractors are frequently paying their employees less or not at all for their hard work. The burden then falls in the employees were working 40-80 hours per week and sometimes with no wages. In the 2015 study connected by UMass Amherst Labor Center, the status of legal wage theft has reached epidemic status. Too often employees find that they have been paid below minimum wage, have been fully compensated for the actual number of hours they worked if at all. Wage theft can come in many different forms but have the common denominator of hurting workers, their families and our communities.
Many laborers who are by definition employees are misclassified as independent contractors, cheating them out of prevailing wages, leaving them on the hook for medical costs if injured on the job. Nearly $1 billion dollars in wages is stolen from hundreds of thousands of workers each year just in our own state. This is an enormous issue that necessitates legislative intervention. Unfortunately, immigrant employees especially vulnerable to the scheme because remain unaware of the recourse available to them and could be too afraid to come forward depending on the immigration status. As a result, workers can1387 go weeks without pay and benefits that they had rightfully earned. From this hearing, you will hear from workers and business owners unions, community organizations, as well as our Attorney General earlier, who are all calling for passage of this bill.
30 of my colleagues in the Senate has signed on to this bill and 117 house members have also signed onto this bill, which is an astounding number, nearly three quarters of the legislature have signed on to this bill. I will also be submitting testimony that all 30 of my co sponsors in the Senate have signed on to the committee as well. This bill creates civil liability for lead contractors who subcontracted companies that sell workers wages in situations when there is a significant nexus to the lead contractors, business1429 operations. The whole music contact is liable, there is little incentive for them to hire law abiding subcontractors as wage violators can offer this service is at a lesser cost.
Consequently, these subcontractors have little incentive to change their listed business practices as they continually get hired despite the history of waste up. This is a race to the bottom that drives a trend for lower wages and vanishing benefits and dangerous working conditions as well as unfair business competition. To be clear, big contractors are well aware of each subcontractors progress because that is their job. They know every brick laid, every milestone met and even whether their subcontractors are paying their employees or not, and they are aware of when subcontracts are not only not paying their wages as well. This bill is a final level the playing field between contractors who continue to pay all of the employees their due wages and those that do not.
I also want to just mention as well as the the Attorney General mentioned this bill that I filed with her as well, an Act relative to enhance enforcement civil penalties, and I wanted just to mention that I am also asking for your favorable consideration on that as well. Thanks very much for your time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you Senator. Just do it myself. Um, All right. Um, I believe we have Representative Dan Donahue Chairman Donna here. Welcome.
REP DONAHUE - HB 1959 - Thank you, Chair Cutler, Chair Jehlen and members of the committee. I really appreciate you taking us out of turn here. I know you have a lot of people signed up to testify today, so I'll be quick. I just want to say that I stand here in support of House 1959, an act to prevent wage theft, which I'm proud to be the lead sponsor on the House side along with my esteemed colleague, Senator DiDomenico with the Senate version and as he said, over 125 co sponsors from both the house and the Senate. As you've heard today from the Attorney General and Senator Di Domenico and you will hear from many of the advocates and organizations will be testifying after us, you know, wage theft is unfortunately becoming a new normal and reality in many industries across the commonwealth.
This new normal robs employees, wages earned, punishes good employers who are following the rules, takes away crucial1556 revenue from the commonwealth and worker safety programs. Wage theft has many faces from non payment, from minimum wage overtime violations, misclassification of workers and many more, but all of1566 which steal from hard working men and women of our commonwealth. As been mentioned before, nearly a billion dollars has been stolen each year to from hundreds of thousands of workers across the commonwealth, that's a massive number of something that is, is a, is an endemic, it needs to be addressed.
Further work wage that exists in many sectors of our economy, it's from the hospitality industry to construction projects and it disproportionately affects low wage and vulnerable workers. As the current economy increasingly relies on subcontracting, good employers are being left at a competitive disadvantage as unscrupulous employers undercut bids or alter the market with the assumption that they're going to get away with wage theft, leaving their workers without fair compensation or other law abiding employers cheated out of work. Wage theft is becoming business as usual and we need to ensure that law and the law enforcement mechanisms keep pace with its growth.
I think this bill does just that by adding more tools to the toolbox for going after these unscrupulous employers who are stealing from their employees and from this commonwealth. The act to prevent wage theft provides a couple, I think important tools and some of what the AG even touched down earlier, and you know, it helps to hold lead contractors responsible to some of the work that their subcontractors are doing and to be held responsible for the violations of wage stepped on these projects when they have a significant connection to that subcontractors, business operations. The bill also ensures timely notice when a wage theft violation has occurred and mechanisms to ensure the violations1653 have been corrected.
It gives the AG more abilities to issue stop work orders when violation have occurred or even to bring some civil wage that violations to court. I think it's important too that this bill goes further than previous bills have been passed in earlier sessions by1674 providing greater enforcement with greater protections from retaliation for workers, from employers1680 when there is a wage theft complaint. Also this bill provides workers with the ability to take some private action to fight wage step themselves. I think with enhanced and stronger force of mechanisms as these we will have empower the AG and workers to hold accountable those who commit or ignore wage theft and protecting the hard working men and women of this commonwealth.
I think this is an extremely important bill looking forward to working with you both chairs and with this committee and with all the advocates to ensure that we can get a favorite report of this bill and and move it1708 along to ensure that we're1709 protecting everyone who goes to work and everyone who has a fair day's work deserves a fair day's wage. So thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great, thank you. I appreciate that. I have two more legislators on my list. Uh we'll go Representative steve altri, no, and then Senator Pacheco and then we'll dive into our signed up testimony list. So represented neutrino.
Don't forget I mute
getting there. I'm sorry about that. Mr Chair,
REP ULTRINO - HB 1959 - Thank you, Chair Cutler, Jehlen and members of the committee for allowing me the time to speak briefly today. I join in support of House 1959, an Act to prevent wage theft. This bill I believe will hold contractors accountable, strengthen workers rights and protect whistleblowers, ensuring we can put a stop to the theft of thousands and hundreds of millions of dollars each year for low wage workers across the commonwealth. I was proud to support this bill when it was introduced because I believe we, as legislators, have the obligation to do all in our power to fight for the rights of working people and to ensure1788 that all workers receive fair pay and treatment in their workplace.
That obligation, in my opinion, hasn't1796 changed in the years since this bill was originally filed, but the urgency with which we need these protections has continued to grow. As we speak, working class families in Massachusetts face1811 higher hurdles to success than they have seen in decades. COVID-19s impact on our economy has left many struggling desperately searching for a path forward that allows them to earn enough money to pay their bills, stay housed and provide for the needs of1830 their families. I'm incredibly grateful to my colleagues and1834 partners across Massachusetts for the work we've done to support these immediate1839 needs, but now we must acknowledge that these impacts will1843 not simply disappear with the pandemic, even as we reopen and people return to their jobs, workers across Massachusetts will remain vulnerable.
Our responsibility is to take clear action now, we cannot hope for an equitable recovery without the assurance that people returning to work will be paid the wages that they were promised and we cannot provide that assurance if the commonwealth does not have the ability to take swift action and promptly win results for workers whose employers have stolen and I repeat stolen the money that those workers earned. This bill offers us the opportunity to provide these are certain insurances which all working people deserve. With this in mind, members of the committee, I strongly recommend House 1959 for favorable passage. I thank Chair Cutler and Jehlen for the opportunity to speak on this critical piece of legislation After being on this committee for four years, now is the time1921 where we need to stop talking about this and doing something about it. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Mr Chairman. Um Unit immune. Gosh, you know, I warned other kind about doing that. You know, it's catching uh Senator Pacheco uh Senator Chico here. Yeah.
Um
Okay, we'll move on if center Pacheco uh when1971 he arrives, we'll certainly take him. Uh All right. Uh so we'll move on now. We have our first we have a panel uh where we have three distinguished guests. We have Stephen Tolman Massachusetts AFL-CIO. Darlene Lambros from the Greater boston Legal services and frank Callaghan from the Mass building trades Commission. Uh Ladies and gentlemen, looks like you're all ready to go. Don't don't forget to turn it off mute like I just did and welcome.
I mean,
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, fellow legislators, and you never want to correct the chairman, but Darlene is the Greater boston Labor Council, not legal services. That's all right. Thank you both good organizations. Uh
STEVEN TOLMAN - MASSACHUSETTS AFL-CIO - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Mr. Chairman, my name is Steven Tolman, I'm the President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and I'm here today on behalf of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO to register our strong support for Senate 1179 and House 1959, an act to prevent wage theft, promote employer accountability and enhanced public enforcement filed by Senator DiDomenico and Representative Donahue. I am proud to be here as part of a coalition that brings together vastly different interests and perspectives but with2048 one common goal and that goal is very simple to make sure that every2055 worker is paid on time for the proper number of hours and the proper rate of pay, whether2064 it be the legal minimum wage, a prevailing wage or time and a half after 40 hours or simply that wage that was promised and rightfully earned, that they sweat and toil and they should be paid appropriately. Despite the fact that we have laws on the books to prevent wage theft in Massachusetts, we know that almost a billion dollars every year is stolen from workers, and only a very small fraction of that is ever recovered, and I mean small.
The reason for that is our laws have proven to be ineffective to the scale of the problem of wage theft. It is for employers who want to take the low road and steal from workers, there is a very clear road map on how to do it and that road map says to outsource to subcontract, oftentimes, to employees who bids come in impossibly low and we all know how they come in so low but for too many employers, it pays not to ask because with the installation of the subcontractor between you and the workers who you are profiting from, you're shielded from the liability and you've created confusion among workers about who's actually responsible2154 to pay them. Now, take that situation2157 and add a few more layers of subcontracting2160 and you have a situation that is nearly impossible for workers to navigate. That's why our wage enforcement laws must be updated to reflect a change in reality of how employers operate and that means creating a civil legal liability all the way up the contracting chain.
The scourge of wage theft committed by unscrupulous contractors has gone on for too long. This money stolen from families, from our neighborhoods, from our state's coffers2196 to the tune of nearly $100 million in tax revenue. Each and every year. Perhaps most disheartening of all is the fact that wage deaf sends a message that some people do not deserve dignity on the job, that's wrong and we can put a stop to it right now. I ask this committee to once again issue this, build a favorable report and for the members of the legislative body to pass the bill into law as soon as possible. It's the single most important thing that we could do this session to fight economic inequality and worker exploitation. I've heard2242 from a lot of people testifying this morning, I know the gumption is there and I look forward to celebrate with you when justice will prevail for those who have been stolen from repeatedly. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you Mr tollman and thank you Darlene love those apologies for the for the wrong G. B. L. C. But both good organizations. Yes, no worries at all.
DARLENE LOMBOS - GREATER BOSTON LABOR COUNCIL - Good morning again. My name is Darlene Lombos, the executive secretary treasurer of the Greater boston Labor Council,2274 representing over 100,000 unions union members and their families and throughout the region. Thank you to the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development for the opportunity to share testimony today. We all know wage theft has been a crisis for a very long time. Back when we started this campaign, when I was the executive director of another organization, Community Labor United, unbelievable, that was eight years ago now we already knew wage theft had exploded across sectors and across industries because of bad employers gaming the system.
Too many layers are created between workers and the real employers that profit the most and there's very little accountability in what we call the underground economy or the fissured economy. Whatever you want to call it, when workers are cheated out of an honest day's pay for an honest2325 day's work, we are all made to pay the price, taxpayers, the communities we live in and even responsible businesses. Let's take a concrete example, building trades unions alert state authorities about a national general contractor Pulte homes not paying workers. The state finds workers on several Pulte homes work sites were not paid for hundreds of hours worked, were not paid overtime and were often paid in fraudulent cheques.
Five subcontractors are ordered to pay over $400,000 in unpaid wages and overtime, but the subcontractors dissolve, just disappear and2360 Pulte homes is never held accountable. Let's take another example from a worker center point of view, six workers at LA collaborative ask for help. They were suddenly fired from us Clean way a cleaning contractor for AMC Lows theaters. La collaborative to finds workers were only being paid $700 each for working seven days a week without meal breaks2387 and helped workers file complaints with the AGs Office. The AG finds us cleaning has violated state law and orders the company to pay the workers over $36,000 in back wages and overtime. A year goes by, no payments are made to workers.
So LA collaborative leads 150 of us into the boston commons AMC Loews theaters and we together demand that AMC Loews takes responsibilities further workers. Within 24 hours, La Collaborative received a hand delivered cashier's cheque for the total balance owed to the six workers. Yes, we won that specific case by taking action in the streets, but we know we can't be everywhere. We see bad employers taking advantage of workers. We know from the previous example that state authorities need additional tools to hold bad employers accountable. We've done our part and now we stand before you again speaking in one voice as unions and worker centers to help us break this cycle of bad employers gaming the system and to affirm that Massachusetts is a pro worker state and isn't afraid to fight for all hardworking residents in our commonwealth, it's time to pass this bill. Thank you so much for listening. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you frank Callahan.
FRANK CALLAHAN - MASSACHUSETTS BUILDING TRADES COUNCIL - HB 1959 - SB 1179 - Thank you Chairman Cutler, Jehlen and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Frank Callahan, I am the president of the Massachusetts building trades council, who represents 75,000 men and women who work in the construction industry. Our members get paid at the end of the day by the merits of the collective bargaining agreements and we police our industry, but only on the union sector and we try to help out those non union workers cheated out of their2492 wages on a regular basis, but we need to help with this bill. I'm here to testify in support of House 1959 and Senate 1179, an act prevents wage theft and promote employer accountability.
Before we begin, I would like to say thank you to both branches, the Senate and the House for2507 including additional monies that the Attorney General alluded to earlier for enforcement,2522 that money is important but I'll echo her subsequent comments that quite frankly, it's not enough to address the scale and the rampant nature of what it's been talked about already. I'll just try to paraphrase my written testimony. The funding for2538 the wage enforcement unit is important but the Attorney General also mentioned the Division of Administrative Law Appeals, which is where a lot of these cases go and they can languish for sometimes years at a time.
That's just far too long2553 for workers who in many cases living paycheck to paycheck. They have to put food on the table, pay the rent, and all the other expenses that we all experience during the day and that's just insufficient. I do also want to also echo the Attorney General, I think you've made a great point, this is about accountability. The way to do that is to change behavior, you know, in our industry, and I'll speak for the construction industry which has been mentioned, they say one giant loophole that has been mentioned several times, that the general contractors and, I want to be clear, it's not all general contractors, it's the unscrupulous once who have ruined the industry for everyone2590 else.
They know that they can bring the same contractors onto the job again and again and again and when they are called on it, they say they do this, they say we2601 didn't know, we didn't know that X, Y Z, drywall or X, Y Z, electrical or roofing and so forth. We didn't know they weren't paying their workers, but2610 somehow they managed to bring that same contractors in their real back job, half the job, half the job. It's a ruse, it's a giant loophole and it needs to be closed. But the goal, and I want to be clear, is not to punish contractors, if this works the way, I hope it does, and I know I may sound a bit naïve here, we don't want one single contractor to pay a fine, we simply want to change the behavior.
It's a simple proposition, you go to work, you put in a full2637 day's work at the2639 end of the day, you should receive the wages and compensation that you were promised at the beginning of the job, not have to wait weeks, months and sometimes never to get paid for all that hard work that you do. Currently, I want to get back to the general contractors, but currently, on any project, public or private, the general contractor is liable for everything2658 else on the job, right down to the color of the paint, the color of the carpet, the quality of the materials, the insurance, the schedule, everything on that project. Now on a public project, they're also technically liable for the wages of the workers, but again, they do this and they pass the buck and somehow those2677 subcontractors cheat their workers and at the end of the day, either the subcontractor disappears or those cases drag on and the end result is the workers either don't get all of what they were supposed to be paid or sometimes nothing.
That needs to be changed. I think it's a simple proposition as well that you2694 hire a general contractor to cover your general conditions and everything on their job. That's the purpose of a general contractor. Those wages on a public project are included in the contract. I think it's an implied whether it's in the contract or not that they should be responsible on private projects as well and they need to be held liable. Until that behavior changes and until those conditions change, they're going to continue to bring those same contractors on job after job, after job and work or after work is going to continue to be cheated out of their proper wages. I won't repeat what's been said as I mentioned, I will submit my written remarks, but you know, so many workers that have been denied and that's the primary responsibility of us as labor leaders and I believe as us legislators to protect those workers to make sure they get paid properly.
But there are other victims involved in2748 this as well, it's the honest contractor who can't compete because the business model that some unscrupulous contractors have adopted, that they will not pay their workers and that's how they undercut them. So those honest contractors lose work opportunities and contract opportunities and our members in the union sector lose work opportunities so they can earn their wages. There are other victims as well, the state of Massachusetts loses taxes, loses2777 unemployment insurance premiums, loses workers compensation premiums because it's not2781 simply that they're cheating their workers out of their wages.
I say this all the time to cities2787 and towns and to end end users in the construction industry, what makes you think you're so special? If they're going out2793 of their way to cheat their workers who work for them, that2797 they have to look at face to face every day and they cheat those workers out of their proper wages, what makes you think they're not cheating you? They're using inferior materials, they're lying about their schedule, they're not delivering the product that they promised you, and in addition, they're cheating on their taxes, they're cheating on their unemployment, they're cheating on their work is caught cheating all the way down the line. That's not a model that we should have in Massachusetts and we think this legislation goes a long way towards closing that business model and it's all back. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
very much appreciate that. Um, any questions from members?
Uh, I think you see a question hold on Representative Hawkins
find the new, but it's different on Microsoft than it is in Zoom. I just wanted to thank the panel for their testimony in their advocacy. I've known the three of you for a while and uh, your honorable and passionate in your work and protecting people who live for living.2856 So thank you. Senator jay, Let thank you. And
JEHLEN - I wanted to ask a question of Mr. Callahan about unemployment insurance payments. Do we have any idea, we are obviously concerned about the solvency of the unemployment trust fund, do you have any idea how much more would be in the unemployment trust fund if people were actually paying the unemployment taxes that2885 they needed to?
CALLAHAN - The most recent study we2890 had seen, this was about 10 years ago was $150 million but I would suggest that the number is far higher than that because the very nature of this is it's an underground economy. The problem with giving you an exact number is there's no number to measure if they're paying people under the table and not paying them at all, they're not declaring that. So it's a very difficult number to get at, but the most recent number I had seen and again, this is about 10 years old was $150 million and that's just for the state of Massachusetts. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Senator Tim lt you had a question.
SEN TIMILTY - Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good morning, President Tolman, President Lombos and President Callahan. Mr. Callahan, quick question, has the wage theft, victimization of your trade union members of the building trades increased with the onset of the pandemic or neutral?
CALLAHAN - Well, as I've seen it earlier, our members get paid because of their collective bargaining agreement and we police that with our contractors. The victimization for our2957 members is that they are losing work2959 opportunities. They never get to the job site in the first place because those unscrupulous contractors are undercutting the bids of the honest contractors. We have seen it prevalent, particularly in the housing construction market, we saw this during the pandemic, not just on the wages, but none of those workers were provided with PPE and all the other protections that our members were. So, as I alluded to earlier, if they're cheating on wages, they don't care about the workers, they don't care about the end user, they just care about the bark at the end of the day and they're cutting corners every chance they get. So I hope I answered your question, but again, the victimization for our members is they don't get to go to work in the first place.
TIMILTY - Okay. So the answer would be yes with the pandemic?
CALLAHAN - Yes. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Okay, thank you. All right. I don't see any further questions going on going twice. All right, well thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen appreciate uh the panel3009 there. Thank you. Uh I did see Senator Pacheco had joined us and if he is still here wanted to give Senator3020 Pacheco chance to uh to weigh in. Can3023 you hear me? We can hear you, sir. Okay, great. I was having a little difficulty uh signing on,
SEN PACHECO - Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman Madam Chair and members of the committee. I just come to add to the extraordinary testimony you just heard from our labor leaders and the Attorney General and I'm sure the testimony that Senator DiDomenico had provided before. You know, listen, the title of this bill says it all, it's wage theft and it should be illegal. I will be following up with the committee with written testimony, but I just wanted to join you today and put myself on the public record here as a co sponsor of this bill, to see if we can get it across the finish line this year. We had significant support across the Legislature in the last term, but we just weren't able to get across the finish line, this needs to be done.
As we've just heard from our extraordinary labor leaders, there are people that are, you know, having their wages stolen. They're putting in a full day's a day of work and then, you know, they're just not getting paid adequately for their services, and the compensation is being taken away. So I urge you to get this out of committee as quickly as possible so we can act on it in the in the legislature, both the House and Senate and get it to the Governor's desk so it can become law at this session. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Senator. All right next up, we're gonna go to Zoe Obra you from the Kalahari Woman Workers Center. I understand. We may be doing a screen share here.
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Thank you. Mr bray. Uh we very much appreciate your testimony. No, that's difficult. And we appreciate the steps that you took to to share that with us this afternoon this morning. Thank you very much. Um Do members have any questions?
It looks like none at this time. Thank you again for coming forward. We have your testimony in english as well and make sure that all the committee members have a chance to to review it. Thank you.
At this time I would invite uh Doctor Not Alicia Tracy from the Brazilian Worker Center. Yeah.
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looks like she's joining us. Okay, Keep it on the floor. Sure. Now I know some technical hurdles here. We appreciate everyone's patience.
Mhm.
And just for for the sake of uh uh scheduling here after this will go to Karen chan from the3755 progressive chinese progressive Association.
NATALICIA TRACY - BRAZILIAN WORK CENTER - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Good morning, Chair3770 Jehlen, Chair Cutler and members of the committee. I'm here today to testify in support of S 1179 H 1959, an act t prevent wage theft for more employer accountability and enhance public enforcement. The Brazilian workers sent away I am the executive director is a grassroots immigrant organization whose mission for the last 26 years has been to support members of our community on issue of workplace and immigrant rights. The most prevalent issue in our community is wage theft. Almost every day, we hear from workers who have been victimized. We always find it necessary3820 to3820 run workers rights workshop and help workers to recover stolen wage because this is a problem that is so prevalent.
Almost every day, we hear is story like this one that I'm going to share with you how wage theft impact workers lives. They come in and they say I'm here because I did not get paid for my last two weeks of work. At that time, I did not have the money to pay my rent or to buy food for my family even to buy milk for my child. I'm desperate, can you help me? I worked for a construction company and I did not get paid for several months. Now, my ex boss has declared bankruptcy. He said that he will not pay me, I don't know what to do. The next case, I walked cleaning restaurants and supermarket and my employer did not pay me for several weeks. I felt humiliated because I could not pay my rent and I could not pay for basic needs and he physically assaulted me.
We also heard from another cleaning, someone who clean homes who did not get paid. I carry a vacuum cleaner, I carried all my supplies around around,3900 I have children, I depend on3902 getting paid to pay for my rent to buy food for my Children. I cared for people, but they don't care for me. Honest and hardworking people fall behind in their payments because they don't get paid. If they have a small ethnic business and don't get paid, they can't pay the employers either. This is what we hear all the time in our community. These are common cases and their impact are huge. You have heard the statistics today that shows how prevalent this issue is and how small businesses and community are hurting across the state of Massachusetts.
I'm here to urge you to pass the act prevent wage theft and promote the employers accountability to enhance public enforcement so workers everywhere and the small business can actually get paid for the work that they have done. There are amazing and good employers out there but unscrupulous employers are getting away with not paying workers. So when people work, they should get paid. Also if anyone goes out and it's still anything they get punished. So wage theft is a crime, so why if it's stealing3982 for workers, people not getting punished. So if I can make a crime I get punished, so why is employers stealing for worker not being punished? So I'm here to ask you to please pass this bill to protect workers and the small business across the state of Massachusetts. Thank you for your time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. Um it looks like Senator J. Allen has a question.
JEHLEN - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is what happens to these people when their job ends or they're fired, are they eligible for unemployment if their employer has not been paying?4017 What happens to them?
TRACY - Most of them are not eligible for unemployment, because first of all, they are small businesses and many of them are part of mixed status families, so they are not able to collect any type of government assistance. So what happens to them is they are at the mercy of friends, churches, to support them, to borrow money and to really4045 just figure out how to support the family. A lot of times, community like us are able to connect them with the small resources and we have gone out in public shaming and try to help them the best that we can but we can't continue to4065 put a band aid on the problem. We need bills to be a deterrent on companies. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? No, seeing none. All right, well, thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony. Uh Next up, we have Karen Chen
what and just for the sake of uh scheduling here after that, we'll go to trend win from the mayor's office of workforce development. Yeah. Yeah.
KAREN CHEN - CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION - Thank you, Chairman Cutler, Chairwoman Jehlen and members of the labor and workforce development. As we're working towards an equitable recovery, I would say that you guys probably chair one of the most important committee as we work towards equitable recovery. This bill is critical to achieving equity. I think, you know, you have heard, you know, it's such an urgent and necessary bill, so I'm here on behalf the Chinese Progressive Association to ask for your full support. You Know, CPA is a small community organization. We work for full equality to improve working living conditions for people in Massachusetts. We have a membership of about, you know, 2000 and in this past year, during the pandemic, we have probably served, you know, the most people, we have received over 8000 calls.
One of the major areas of work is a worker center, we help workers to learn about and stand up4175 for their rights. Over the years, we have seen wage theft unfold in different ways. Workers don't get paid timely, workers get paid monthly instead4186 of biweekly or weekly or twice a month, workers are not getting paid for months of work, constantly getting late because the employer claims that business is slow. Sometimes, workers get let go because of work injury and then they withhold the last4202 month of pay. Over4204 time is also often, you know, some employees feel like it's only optional to pay workers, so the list goes on and on and on. We also know that subcontracting and outsourcing has become a common practice of employment.
In this subcontracting model, the employer at the top of the chain, but also the person or the company that benefit the most from the workers labor is not a direct employer, and so he is not liable or pay informed. So we feel like it's an important time, you know, to update and close this4239 loophole. Wage theft is a serious problem in the community. Just in 2020, a year with high unemployment rate, CPA helped 75 workers on4249 workplace issues related to wage theft. We have recovered about 80,000 stolen wages. So, you know, wage theft hurts the individual, individual workers, you know, families, it hurts businesses who are, you know, playing by the rules and you know, I think that in a situation where there's like contract and bidding, you know, they can have a better bid but, you know, workers not paying unfold. So it's important for us to really think about, you know, how do we actually close this?
I think that this bill will help close the loophole and I think this bill is also not new to the legislature and that's why we feel like, you know, it's urgent. We want to make sure that you know, workers have strong labor protections that4299 will give us a more stable community that's important for the recovery and the very people who actually keep all of us, you know safe, healthy, fed, clean during the pandemic are those who are most vulnerable to wage theft. So I think4313 it's important for the commonwealth to protect these workers and that, you know, I strongly urge you know, the committee to move this bill forward. I also want to stay in the record that you know, I am also the treasurer of the Asian pacific American labor Alliance and Chairperson Qingwei has also sent a support little as well as this is you know, wage theft is a prevalent issue. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you appreciate that. Alright, don't see any questions. Um So we'll move on. So what we have trend win from the mayor's office and then after that we'll have Michael McDonough from the Associated subcontractors in massachusetts. So uh this when are you with us?
Give you a moment.
Okay. Um we can come back to you. Um Mike McDonough from Associated come to contractors in massachusetts. Mr McDonough. Are you Yeah here with. Hello? Yes, I hear you. Hi,
MICHAEL MCDONAGH - ASSOCAITED SUBCONTRACTORS OF MASSACHUSETTS - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to testify today before the committee. Thank you to the committee members. I'm here to testify on Senate Bill 1179 and House Bill 1959, both the wage theft prevention legislation. For the record, my name is Mike McDonagh, I'm the executive director of the associated subcontractors of Massachusetts, an Association of over 300 trade contractors, both union and open shop who perform most of the large scale work on construction projects throughout the commonwealth, both in the public and private sector. We believe that companies who commit wage theft have no place in our industry or frankly in any4462 industry.
Our members want to compete against subcontractors that play by the rules and we support strong enforcement of the laws in place to punish those employers who4470 are cheating4471 their workers on wages. But we have concerns with the joint and several liability provisions in the proposed bills, which we believe are unduly harsh and simply unfair on law abiding businesses in the commonwealth and if enacted, would punish the wrong people. I'd like to just give the committee a brief example of how this would work in construction and why subcontractors are concerned with this provision in the bill. Just a brief example, so take a family owned midsized electrical subcontractor, let's call them Kim's family electrical.
It's working on a new office tower in Boston. They hire a subcontractor referred to as a sub subcontractor in the industry, let's call them Danny's telecom to perform the telecommunications portion of the electrical package of work, which4520 is common practice in the industry. The companies worked together before on several jobs. Danny's telecom has a solid reputation in the industry and Kim's electrical has no reason to believe that this sub sub won't pay their employees. As the work proceeds, Kim's electrical pays Danny's telecom on an ongoing and timely basis. Everything seems fine but weeks after the job is completed, Kim's electrical receives notice from the AGs Office that Danny's telecom was underpaying and withholding significant portions of compensation due to their workers.
After confronting Danny's telecom about the issue, all communication from Danny's telecom stops and they cannot be located. Kim's electrical now received notice from the AGs Office that they must now pay all the unpaid wages of Danny's telecom workforce, even though they've already paid all monies due and owed under their contract. That means Kim's electrical is paying twice for the same work, something they can ill afford to absorb an extra cost. It required to pay not only the unpaid wages, but they'd also be subject to treble damages and attorney's fees. Treble damages means that they owe three times the cost of any unpaid wages and benefits to use actual figures.
An example, if the original contract had $100 in labor costs, Kim's electrical would now have to pay up to $300,000 plus Attorney's fees on top of the 100,000 they've already paid under the original contract. We believe that's not fair. This provision of joint and several liability is meant to punish the innocent and guilty companies alike and could bring financial ruin to the subcontractor. In this example, here, it's the innocent company that gets punished in the cheating company that walks away. Some will say that the subcontractor should have done their due diligence before hiring Danny's telecom as a sub sub but the bill does not define due diligence and there's no safe harbor protection.
In closing, I want to reiterate that we4646 support strong enforcement of our laws to prevent wage theft. These bills, we believe go after the wrong people that are not violating the law but simply have a contract with a company that is violating the law. We stand ready as an association to work with this committee, to work with the Legislature to work towards legislation that's fair for all that will result in strong enforcement and prevention of wage theft. Thank you for this opportunity and I'm happy to respond to any questions from the committee. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Okay, Thank you. Mr Mcdonnell. We appreciate that. I appreciate your uh willingness to come forward today. Maybe I'll ask a quick question as a follow up to your to your fact pattern. Um If if I could modify that somewhat. If if uh the contractor was that kim's was Danny's the sub in this scenario, The sub sub. Okay. If
REP CUTLER - If Kim's new had noticed that the subcontractor was committing wage theft and subsequently did nothing, would that change your view of the fact pattern?
MCDONAGH - You know, I absolutely think so. I think if the lead contractor this case is also a subcontractor but it might be a general contractor is given notice that the company below them is not paying wages or not paying overtime or not paying benefits then that, I think it's a completely different conversation because now they're put on notice and if they continue to pay that company after notice, you know, I think that's a completely different4745 fact pattern, I think we would we would uh certainly looks like in that example the Kim's would not come away with clean hands, so to speak and it would have possibly some culpability. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you appreciate that. Um I did see a question from Senator Jalen. Okay and
JEHLEN - Thank you. We have heard testimony that there are fly by night companies, and I'm curious what the pattern is that you've seen, McDonagh in how many companies are well known bad actors and how many are surprised bad actors who have a good pattern of relationship and then suddenly disappear without having paid? Do you have multiple examples of4794 that or is it something you're, I can imagine easily that might happen?
MCDONAGH - Well, certainly I would say that we were an association of about 300 subcontractors in virtually every trade, as I mentioned union and non union public and private work, but make no mistake about it, there's plenty of subcontractors out there in the state that are not part of our association, we really have no relationship with. On occasion, I'll get a phone call from some of our members who will4833 say they've experienced situation where they've lost out on a bid because they believe somebody has underbid them and undercut them and maybe it's because they're using low figures on wages and maybe it's something else, but they've called us with that situation.
So that's why we believe strongly that that this bill not only addresses issues but not only are our workers losing out on paid wages, but our own members and others are losing out on business because they're being undercut by unscrupulous contractors that are out there and operating. I think there's some pieces of this bill and some people, parts of other bills that we believe might go toward preventing that. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Vice Chair Win. Had a question. Thank you for that. And
NGUYEN - Thank you, Mr. McDonagh for your testimony. I want4886 to get a better understanding, so the issue is that it's under reported and there's really not a good understanding of, like you said, the contractor may not know that a subcontractor may be unscrupulous, right? So can you see a scenario where this bill could or provision that it could help in terms of increasing accountability, but also giving a better sense of which type of subcontractors are unscrupulous so that you as a general contractor or other general contractors would know who are not following the laws so that you can avoid those subcontractors going forward to your point of having4951 this notice of who in the subcontractor world are not following the laws.
MCDONAGH - Thank you for that question. I think one of the provisions in the bill speaks to having some sort of a notice system set up where if someone is found to have been in violation, there will be some sort of way to to access that information for a period of five years if I'm not mistaken. So there would be some4984 sort of a lack of a better word, a database of violators which may go to your point, Madam Vice Chair about having some sort of a way to perform due diligence, as some have said, should be done by a lead contractor or a general contractor. Right now, there's really nothing in place for a subcontractor or leave contractor. They may have a good relationship with the company, like in my example, they may have no reason to believe that a company would not pay their wages, but right5019 now, there's nothing set up to provide any kind of a safe harbor or to do really any due diligence beyond what they can do themselves. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Okay. Um Any other questions? Seeing none. Thank you. Mr Mcdonnell appreciate you coming forward. Thank you. Thank5036 you very much. All right, so next up, first off I guess we'll is trend win from the Mayor's office of workforce development here if she is please uh feel free to chime in, we'll get you in. Uh And then we're gonna have just for for scheduling purposes we're gonna invite and I apologize in advance for the pronunciation. Odeon, Jose de Amaral from the new England Regional Carpenters. And then after that we'll have roger Burnell. So um
body in Jose de Amaral. Mr de Amaral are you here?
Give a moment
looks like oh there we go. Looks like they're getting settled. Yeah.
Mr Chairman um with this pleases the committee um on behalf of Mr Emerald, I will uh The Emerald, I will read his testimony. He speaks uh Portuguese. So if there's any questions uh with me is Carlos de Souza who can translate for the questions but just for the sake of moving things along, I'll read his testimony. It works.
ODELEIN JOSE D'EMERALD - CONCERNED CITIZEN - Chairman Cutler, Chair Jehlen and members of the committee. My name is Odelein Jose D'Emerald. I was hired by WNW Construction Incorporated, a general contractor from Framingham Massachusetts to work on several projects throughout Massachusetts. I was then brought to work on a project at 64 Derek Avenue in North Providence Rhode Island. On May 18th of this year, I was working on the project with Form in Wellington. There was exterior wall that had been erected but needed plywood attached to the outside. Wellington told me to use this aluminum ladder and he would cut plywood from inside the building in handmade pieces to nail to the exterior. The ladder was not secured and there was nobody to hold it but we needed to get the job done.
He told me to hurry up because it was getting late and would be 6:00 PM soon. I had to switch hands from holding the nail gun, so I had to let go of the ladder, the ladder shifted and I fell to the ground. Wellington came to me and tried to give me assistance. He wanted to take me to the hospital in his car, but I told him I could not move, that was when someone called 911. I was treated and removed by an emergency medical technicians and taken by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital. I broke my left arm and broke both arms, had to have his right wrist repaired with screws to help it heal.5216 Since leaving the hospital, the5219 company has not offered any assistance, which is why I reached out Carlos De Souza, the business representatives from the carpenters.
He reached out to the insurance company on my behalf, the company, Universal Insurance out of Worcester mass. No payments have been made to me by WNW5238 for my pay or the accident and the insurance company has also made no payments. I have never been asked to fill out any paperwork for the company WNW or for the insurance company. I was making $21 an hour in cash and I need this money to support my family. I have a home, a wife, two young children, 10 and 12 years old that I need to support. Anything you can do to help me and people in my situation would be much appreciated. Please hold these people responsible and have them pay workers like me what they owe them. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Ex miss that uh the Admiral's testimony.
Thank you Mr Joyce. Thank you Mr Damrell5284 for for that other members who have any questions.
Give it a moment here. Mhm. I see none. Is there anything Mr general would like to add to that? Um is that cover everything?
Mm hmm. Oh. Uh huh. Oh let's start finally, careful soon. Not not at the moment. I think everything was set on the testimony. Okay, well we want we want to thank Mr Daniel for coming forward. Obviously he for his individual situation. We hope he's getting the help that he needs and uh certainly we appreciate his coming forward and helping us to to inform our review of this broader legislation. So thank you biggest strength.
Okay. At this time, I think we said Roger Burnell uh will be up now and then after that we have roman5349 barons. Yeah. As Roger Burnell here.
Oh there he is. Okay,
sure.
Mhm. You can speak. Okay. Mhm.
ROGER BRUNEL - INTERNATIONAL UNION OF PAINTERS AND ALLIED TRADES DISTRICT COUNCIL 35 - HB 1959 - SB 1179 - Thank you, Chair Cutler, Chair Jehlen, distinguished members of the committee. For the record, my name is Roger Brunel, I'm the President of the International Union of Painters and Allied trades District Council 35 here in Northern New England. I also serve as the political director. I see, Representative Hawkins is on and recently, we sat on a panel where he talked about math and he made a joke about the Pythagorean theorem, it wasn't exciting or sexy, but I love numbers, I love math, and the theorem is actually something I've used quite a bit in my life. So just to talk about numbers, I'm here to testify in favor of House Bill 1959 and Senate Bill 1179, the companion bill.
Just to talk about numbers, this is about revenue. You've heard testimony already that we're closing in on a billion dollars here in Massachusetts that's being stolen in wages. So if we want to extrapolate the data out, if we take the 5% mass state tax, that equals out to about $50 million every year that is stolen out of the General Fund. That's about 500 teachers or police officers or firefighters. This is money that's being stolen out of the Massachusetts general fund. If you average the federal tax around 22%, that's $220 million every year that is stolen from the federal revenue that could be coming back to Massachusetts in grants or federal programs. 6.5%, social security average, that comes out to $6.25 million that could be going to the Social Security fund.
1.4 into Medicare, it was $14.5 million. So you can see where I'm going with this but that's just this year. If you want to go back, we've been doing this for about 7-8 years now. So times that by seven or eight years and this is how much revenue we've lost. The total revenue were up to around $4 billion since we have started this and we have stared to bring this bill forward in various iterations, but we're here today to say that this is not a solution in search of a problem, this is a solution for a tremendous problem that we have right now. This is the new business model that my 300 signatory contractors with the painters Union in various trades deal with every day. They're competing against unscrupulous contractors and losing bids.
This is the level the playing field. This is not a business model that should be representative of the businesses that work and thrive here in Massachusetts. If you were a worker at McDonald's and you stole $100 out of5571 the cash register, you would be prosecuted, you'd5573 be taken to jail but if that employer steals $100 out of your wage cheque, nothing happens to them and you have to think about the where with all of the worker to actually recoup this. My members are represented by a union. We have business agents and we have organizers, if something goes wrong with their paycheck, we can get to the bottom of this.
The average worker does not and they might not have the institutional knowledge of the legal system or the federal or the state government to meander through the red tape for them to get their wages back. This puts the tool in the toolbox for the Attorney General to work for those workers and get the wages back in a timely fashion. With that, I'll take any questions and I thank you very much for my time to testify before you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great, thank you. Mr Brunel. Uh one of the members have any questions?
Okay.
Seeing none. Okay, thank you. Mr Bernanke appreciate it coming forward. Uh we have roman barons and then um I see Senator Finis joined us. If he wants to testify, field indicate uh we'd be happy to have you join us. And after that5648 then we'd have Alfred Coca, junior from the painters.
Good afternoon,
ROMAN BARONS - CONCERNED CITIZEN - Good afternoon. My name is Roman Barons and I'm a restaurant worker5655 in North Hampton Massachusetts. Between 2017 and 2018, I worked at an add a5667 music venue, as a fry cook, bartender and dishwasher. On my first shift, I heard the chef complaining that her paycheck that week was $80 short. The staff acknowledged that this was just something that happens all the time. Nearly all of my co workers had a similar story, but I had no idea what to do about it. We had none of the state required posters to tell us our rights regarding wage and hour law and we didn't even know we had a right to paid sick leave, something which in our industry often decides whether the person's cooking your food comes into work ill or if they can afford to stay home.
My co workers constantly discussed dollars missing from paychecks or parents having to choose between a sick child and getting a full week's pay. A year into my5704 employment, I started researching state labor law. I found5706 out that we had been illegally denied sick time and after making it call the Attorney General's office, I brought the issue to my manager and my coworkers and I saw sick time accruing on our paychecks for the first time, starting at zero with no acknowledgement of what we5719 were owed retroactively. In August of 2018, I've been bartending for about five months at an hourly wage of 5.25 per hour. In Massachusetts, employers are required to make up the difference if tipped workers tips and hourly pay combined does not meet5733 minimum wage.
My tips were never counted, but business was slow and it was common to only make $10 over the course of a five hour shift. After learning about this law, I sent an email to my boss and photos of pay stubs and shift dates explained that I was owed $315 in wages stolen away that would be undetectable if I didn't know what I was legally owed. When I finally got my paycheck for lost wages, I was told by co workers that I was the first person they had ever seen actually get their money back. So much wage theft is committed this way, reliant on employees not knowing their rights and therefore avoiding consequence by taking a few dollars5765 here and there where you won't notice.
After leaving my position, I joined together with other former workers to bring our legal concerns to our local workers center, we were told that singular workers under5775 this employer had come forward many times over the years but were never able to convince others to testify. We saw the same fear of retaliation in our co workers while they shared their own stories of money being taken out of tip jars by management or paste ups appearing with unpaid breaks that were never taken. In July5795 of 2019, the5797 workers filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office. After receiving a dozen complaints and investigation was opened, one which is still ongoing today, two years later, as5806 my former employer refuses the office's request for documents and is rich enough to afford to ignore the small penalties for doing so.
The blatant lack of accountability that business owners face and the intentional lack of labor law education in the workplace is5819 what allows wage theft to happen on such a large scale. We were lucky with our numbers as we know, that businesses with just one or two complaints can easily slip through the cracks in favors of cases with more worker testimony. An important thing about this bill is that it allows more opportunities for investigation into smaller businesses by extending resources to the commonwealth as well as the Attorney General. We need stronger protection for those of us, afraid that if we try to advocate for ourselves, we will be fired. While it's illegal to fire someone for standing up for their rights in the workplace, every worker knows that employers have many tricks to avoid accountability when they do.
This bill would further clarify worker protections, strengthening our ability to support ourselves knowing there's a system behind us that believes are stories when were penalized for speaking out. We can only have our rights respected when our employers know that someone is watching and is on the workers side. Thank you.
Great, thank you very much for your testimony. Are there any questions from the members? Okay. Okay. Seeing none. Thank you. Uh So next up we have Alfredo Coca junior and then we'll go to Ana Cristina silva from the Brazilian Work Women's Group. Excuse me.
So, Mr Coca?
Sorry?
Yeah.
Mhm. Are we getting ready for Mr Coca? Is he here?
I'm not seeing any. Okay, we'll come back to him. All right. Um So then Ana Cristina Silva from the Brazilian Women's Group. Silva, are you here? Yes, I'm5924 here. Welcome. Uh christian of silver, silver, thursday morning show. The joint Community on labor and workforce development, john 8
2021.
Ah
ANA CHRISTINA SILVA - BRAZILIAN WOMEN'S GROUP - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of S 1179 H 1959, an Act to prevent wage theft promote employer accountability and enhance publicly enforcement. My name is Ana Christina Silva, I am a domestic worker and member of Brazilian Women's groups. During the beginning of the pandemic, my family and I faced a very difficult financial crisis for two reasons. First, because my husband was out of work for a few weeks based on the COVID-19 restriction and the second, because I had my wages stolen by my employer. I worked for the employer for 10 months from September 2019 to July 2020 as a house cleaner. Also, I was responsible to drive through my employer while I was driving, my colleagues during the working time.
My husband had to take care of the household expenses himself but then during the lockout, without my wages and with my husband enable to work, things started to get even hard. I allowed the situation with my employer because I liked her so much, that's why I devoted as much as good to file a wage theft claim against her by and ended up being fired by her a few months later without my wage. With the support of the workers rights project of the Brazilians Woman's group, I was able to finally get my wage back. But my family and I is still facing the consequence from the time6086 that we didn't have enough to pay my bills and buy groceries. I am glad that with the help of Brazilian Women's group, I was able to negotiate my wages, but many other domestic workers do not have the same support, especially for those who worked for a subcontractor. For these reasons, I ask you to vote favorably to pass this bill that will prevent so many exploitation. Thank you so much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. I appreciate you coming forward. Uh There were any questions6132 from the members
seeing none. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Um So we're going to go to uh Senior Al Faro and then6146 and then I believe actually Senator Pacheco had uh some further testimony.6154 So Yesenia Alfaro, are you here? Yes, I am here. Thank you. Uh
YESSENIA ALFARO - LA COLABORATIVA - SB 1179 - HB 1959 - Thank you, Chair Cutler, Chair Jehlen. My name is Yessenia Alfaro. So I am here to testify in favor of Senate Bill 1179 and House Bill 1959 La Colaborativa, we know that for many years being part of the Western coalition intervention of wage recovering that we're trying to do constantly for workers that come through the workers center. For us, it is very urgent. In my opinion, this is a pandemic, that needs an immediate cure. Similarly to Covid-19, this is something that has been happening for years and there has been no remedies. In the meantime, we continue to see workers coming through the door of La Colaborativa constantly trying to recover their wages that have been taken by subtractors.
We will be happy to provide you with more written testimony from cases like Jesus Verona who testified on June 3rd about how he's a small contractor, how he was not paid by the big contractor, resulting in not being able to make payments to the workers that work for him during that season. At La Colaborativa, we are constantly also seeing people that are coming through the food pantry in need of not only recovering their wages but in need of making payments towards their rent, in need of putting food on their table. So this is something that we urge everybody to put an attention that is what is needed more than ever. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
And uh Gladys will be testifying later around. I feel that she's gonna be adding more about the great work that Latina is. This effort in combating with many other workers center and unions. The west that
great thank you. Senior. Uh it will take Gladys after Senator Pacheco just for scheduling purposes. Any questions on the committee? Seeing none. All right Center Pacheco, we have some some further testimony. Yes, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay.
PACHECO - SB 1240 - Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I also wanted to testify on Senate 1240, an act in terms of employer sanctions. This bill would place sanctions on employers that do not pay the health insurance that they are legally obligated to pay for their employees when their employees are paying their premiums. I speak to this issue from personal experience. This actually happened many, many years ago when my dad was working for a manufacturing company here in the the city of Taunton, and he and all the people that were working for a company here many years ago, were paying their health insurance premiums.
They were paying up to date for their premiums and the company was not paying the insurance company. Employees actually went to the hospital, had operations,6388 had medical procedures done and long behold, what ended up happening was that the employees started getting bills in the mail for what should have been paid by the insurance companies. Of course, the insurance company had canceled the insurance because they hadn't been getting the payment from the employer. This bill would rectify that situation so that an employer who withholds or deducts from an employee's pay for the6429 purpose of paying an insurance policy and fails to make the payment is punished by one or more of the following; imprisonment for not more than six months, a fine of up to $1,000 and reimbursement to the employee for the deductions or costs incurred by the employee because of how insurance could possibly lapse. So that in the case that took place, it was able to be worked out with the insurer, not necessarily the employer.
We had to get at the time, the Attorney General's office involved and other entities involved to try to work through this case with the insurer, it was back then that I found out that this was not a rare situation, it happens periodically. I thank the committee in the past for moving this bill forward and it has almost got to the finish line in the legislative session a few times. I think it should be passed into law. There is no reason in the world why Presidents6507 of companies, treasures of companies, officers of companies should be let off the hook when they're engaging in these types of fraudulent activities in placing their employees health at risk. So, I would urge the committee to pass favorably, Senate 1240, so we can rectify this loophole that still exist in our statutes. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Mr. Chairman, Thank you. Senator. All right, we'll go to Gladys vega. And then after that we have Milagros Barreto just for the scheduling purposes. Miss vega. Yes, yes,
GLADYS VEGA - LA COLABORATIVA - Thank you, everyone. My name is6550 Gladys Vega, I work at La Colaborativa too. I am so glad to be joined by all these legislators who are willing to listen to the work proposed bill. This legislation would allow many workers who have been taken advantage for years to work with pride and confidence and have dignity at the workplace. We need new tools for our workers as a way of penalized in these companies that for decades have profited from the sweating pain, especially of immigrant workers. This proposed law takes in consideration the fact that the mistreatment of workers, stolen wages, it takes total like in consideration and it blames the contracting companies that for decades have hidden away and have continued without penalty to continue6602 to do this theft.
As the ED of La Colaborativa, this stolen wages robs organizations like ours resources because when a worker is not able to get paid, they come here, we have to6648 pay the rent, we have to6650 help them with utilities, we have to help them so they don't sleep outside, we have to place them in locations or negotiate with landlords and explain to landlords that really don't care because they want to get paid their rent. So I feel that if we had to build their penalizes, the companies that are stealing the wages, it is the way for all of us to play fare and to treat the workers with dignity and respect. For decades, we've been working on wage theft and it's a continued battle constantly.
We go after one and then they change the name, they become a new company and then they come here and recruit people to work and they begin to do the whole action all over again. So please, I urge you for this year, as a woman that has worked so hard during this pandemic and as a person who witnessed that even during the pandemic, those frontline workers that were working at times at the protest center, we're also getting their wages stolen. So I urge you to please pass this bill and thank you for everything you have done for the community of Chelsea. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. Mr vega. Are there any questions?
Okay. Ah Thank you. So I had announced Milagros burrito, I may have watched that. Did I come somewhere close?
MILAGROS BARETO - MASSCOSH - Thank you. I'm very honored to be here and thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to talk this morning to all of you. My name is Milagros Barreto, I'm the worker center director at the Massachusetts coalition for occupation of safety and health or MassCOSH. We work to ensure that all workers can go to work and earn favorable wages, be treated with respect and6764 dignity and return home to their families alive and well. Stealing wages is not an accident or an oversight, it is a premeditated crime. It is inhumane to steal from the people who are giving most of the hours of their life to ensure the success of the business only to be blindsided by their great employers.
I'm here today on behalf of thousands of hardworking families that day by day risks their lives going to work but go home underpaid. That's why we are here asking you to support this bill, an act to prevent wage theft. This bill would give us more tools to promote employer accountability, to enhance public enforcement, to stop retaliation and6809 ensure people get paid what they work. Just this morning, I received a phone call from a restaurant worker who has been working in this place for three years. He's been working 130 hours by weekly and he's just been paying 80 hours for three years. When he decides to step up and asked her employer why you're not paying me my overtime, the employer simply fired him, that was just this morning. We have another example Alex Saturday Fragoso that she was going to be here just today with you all but because of work she couldn't make it.
She was hired by a subcontractor in a construction project in Boston location and he said he and her coworkers did a drywall job in three floors building. The6862 first week was paid, but that was the only wages they received. This happened three years ago and until these days, we are hoping Elizabeth and her co workers to try to recover the wages and Elizabeth said, 'the damage this person did to us, it's never going to be repaired.' This6880 is just an example of one of the thousands that labor centers and unions see every day and if we do not pass a law like this, we will continue to see this abuse and6894 that employers continue to operate in the shadows of our underground economy. The last6900 thing, this is not about only money, this is also about the suffering of families and the demoralization of the workers as a human being. So thank you so much and I hope you support us in this. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Are there any questions from the members?
Okay. Uh, seeing none. Thank you Spirito. Um, so I have uh just run down the list here, um, still trend win from the mayor's office. If if you are here feel free to chime in. I have alfredo Coca from painters, uh, he is here. Please let me know. And then otherwise I have steven Joyce from the Carpenters. And that is that is the extent of my sign up list for someone who's here who thought they were supposed to6951 testify or wishes to testify and has not. Please uh, put it in the chat right right now and our staff will take a look.6960 Um And we'll give a moment here. It looks like we're having some technical issues with Mr coca. So we'll give him a moment to try and log in. Um And I'm just looking to6969 see if anyone has6970 any further sign ups. I'm not seeing any. So this has been um
very very good. We've got to folks left so um Mhm. I guess we have a moment here to to wait. Yeah,
well it's a good opportunity to thank all the members for all of your diligence and sticking with us6988 has been a lot of important testimony today. I think it's been really helpful and illuminating. So it's definitely worth, worth our while. We appreciate everyone who's taking the time to listen and also to come and testify.
I see that Mr coca coca cocoa car has has perhaps joined us.
Just make sure you admit yourself sir.
Alfredo. Can you hear us? If you could on mute?
Hello? Can you hear me? Yes we can sir you're on. That's okay.
Yes sir. Sorry. All my work is there's a lot going on here. That's okay we're hearing about work so it's okay. Happy to hear from you.
Yes sir.
Is hori in this meeting too?
I'm not sure
this. Uh you would sign up to testify on the wage theft bill. We're happy to hear that if you like. Um Yeah so
7063 COCA7063 -7063 CONCERNED7063 CITIZEN7063 -7063 Basically,7063 I got a phone call during7086 Thanksgiving last year November 25th and Selvin called me and asked me to come up to Massachusetts he had a job, he7097 was going to pay me salary which was $2500. I said okay. I got out there 27th November and started working. When I got my first cheques, I see the whole 31 hour but my calculations was clocking in my own hours, so it didn't add up. That's when I pursued on calling Jorge, the union guy.
Okay. Yeah I appreciate that. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Uh well
COCA - No, it was just the hourly thing he was pretty much talking us for whatever he thought we didn't work whatever. He thought we were definitely working over the 31 hours but I guess whatever in his mind that we weren't working enough or 50 or 60 hours, he wouldn't give us the whole paycheck, so he just started taking money out of our cheques and that's when we quit. We just had enough and gave up and left, that was on May 6th, that was our last day. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Okay. Uh any committee members um have any questions
well? And we know your work. Mr coker. So we want to hold you up, but we appreciate you7173 taking the time out of work to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So the last speaker I have, unless there is uh anyone else who signed up, I'm not seeing that would be um, steve Joyce from the Carpenters. Mr Joyce.
STEVEN JOYCE - NORTH ATLANTIC STATES REGIONAL COUNCIL OF CARPENTERS - Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Steven Joyce, I'm the contractor relations director for the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters. We represent 30,000 members and their families, but more than that, we represent all carpenters, those are people that are members of ours or not and we find ourselves oftentimes having to put more effort into protecting those workers that are out there that are unrepresented. So I've been working on this issue for over 30 years. I worked on this when I worked years ago in the Attorney General's office and we're fighting for this wage equity for a long time.
Unfortunately, as Mr. Coca had just talked about, we see workers who take jobs and they don't get paid or that they don't get paid what they're supposed to be paid for all the hours that they work. You know, we heard from people earlier working on a cash basis, they don't get overtime pay. There are a whole host of ways that people are stealing wages but what's the solution? So as you heard Attorney General Healey talk in the very beginning and tell you about the issues where they go after the sub subcontractor who then doesn't pay the workers and they're not real companies, there's somebody that somebody sub contracted to so there's no assets there for the Attorney General to go after even when she proves that wage theft occurred.
The truth of the matter is on those projects in the construction industry, the building still gets built, the general contractor still makes their profit, the subcontractors under them all make their profit in the workers left holding the bag. So we did hear from the sub contractors association in Massachusetts and I think that there's a lot of things that we can find7324 some commonality on but one of the things was that you know, he said that contractors could end up paying twice, I think that there's ways to avoid that, they could actually sue anybody that they had already paid for breach of7339 contract. A few years back.,7340 if folks remember, the Legislature passed prompt pay Act to protect those subcontractors that Mr. McDonagh represents, we supported that, to have those folks be paid promptly, but then they have to pay their employees promptly too.
Unfortunately, in too many situations that doesn't happen. I think the notice that the Chairman spoke of and that Mr. McDonagh seemed to think covered things is something that we can certainly work. We've worked with the committee over the past 3-4 sessions and we got close, I think in the last session, we got the closest that we've ever been and Covid hit and everything got put on delay. We are committed to working with the committee and to working with other stakeholders to see this pass in this session. So, I hope that in short order we can get together and bring the stakeholders together and come up with a quick solution, move this bill forward.
You heard from workers who were injured, unfortunately, some of the sub sub sub contractors, not only do they not have assets and not pay their bills, but also they put people into very dangerous situations. We heard from several workers,7422 not only were they the victims of wage theft, but also we're working in unsafe conditions, were injured and then still not paid the wages that they were all, and then have to fight to get what's7434 rightfully theirs under workers compensation. The unfortunate thing is, if you're working on a cash basis, insurance premiums are not paid. So there's no unemployment, there's no workers compensation, there's no safety net that workers are supposed to be entitled to. So with that, I look forward to working with the committee7466 and to come into a quick resolution to this7470 issue. I thank you for your time. I hope that having a lot of folks in one spot, being able to work with the technology was helpful to the committee, and again, look forward to working with you and I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great. Thank you steve. It's like vice chair win had a question. Thank you.
7491 NGUYEN7491 -7491 Thank7491 you for your testimony, Steve. I agree with you that general contractors are in a much better position to sue the sub or the sub subcontractors than leaving it up to the workers to do that. Do you know if general contractors are doing anything to essentially hold that actors accountable? It seems as though, you know, they agree that wage theft is an issue, but they don't think that this bill would address that. Have they come up with any other proposals or alternatives? I mean, I think we can all agree that holding bad actors accountable would be better not only for workers, but other companies as well so that bad actors don't have an economic advantage over people who are complying with the laws. So have you heard anything from them?
JOYCE - So we have spoken with different general contractors. Listen, most of the people that are out7544 there are good, honest, hardworking folks. They go out, they take a lot of risk and they, you know, they deserve a reward and they get, you know, good hard work. I think most general contractors out there support in general, everything comes down to the details. There is in almost every contract, retainage which is money that's held back to make sure that the product is one that is supposed to be and that all of the requirements have been met by their subcontractors before they pay them the final payments. Those are, you know, ways of being able to make workers hole.
There are other provisions that can be put into contracts that say that, you know, if some subcontractor does not make their payments as required, that the general contractor could take action civilly to go after the subcontractor for failing to meet their obligations. They do that in workmanship, they do that and a whole lot of other things but when it comes to wages, oftentimes, folks don't want to do it. Within the union world that we work, sometimes there are issues around benefit payments and we work with the general contractors and the general contractors will do something that we call a joint cheque to the benefits funds. All right.
There's no reason that that couldn't be done to protect workers as well, that they would pay the workers on behalf of the subcontractor. There are a lot of situations and solutions out there that are certainly in the control of many of the general contractors. I would say that there are some that we7654 spoke to that are supportive, they'd like to see some tweaks to the legislation as filed and again, happy to work with the committee to do that. But there are some people that this is their business model and they use the same contractor time after time after time. You know,7672 folks talked about going out and taking action directly for some workers who haven't had money paid into the government, so they are not entitled to some of those resources but we go out and you know, we'll shame people, we will take street action to to get people paid, we do that quite often for those who are unrepresented.
But at the end of the day, those general contractors that cheap do it over and over and over again. I think Frank Callahan said it best earlier, listen, we don't want to see any penalties fall on anybody, we want people to be compliant, we want to change bad behavior, right? And we want business to continue. We want employers to employ workers, all these workers that are out there employ them, but pay them for the work they do. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Uh Any further questions.
Uh, seeing7727 none. So just for the record here, just gonna read off the bills in case as anyone else Who wishes testifying? House Bill 1959 or Senate Bill 1179
seeing none. Senate Bill 1 177,
Senate Bill 1-40,
Senate Bill 1-5 1
And House Bill 1948
seeing none and having no further folks signed up for7786 testimony. At this point, I'm going to close this public hearing and thank everyone for joining us today.
Thank you,
mm.
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