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Employer Fraud Costs Workers
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/01-2
Wrongly classifying workers as independent contractors gets around laws like workers' compensation and family and medical leave. It's costing Texas construction workers millions, according to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 520 in Austin. (Photo: Workers Defense Project)
Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is a serious problem in the Texas construction industry—so serious that my local decided to do an undercover investigation, using covert workers to infiltrate job sites.
The conditions they found were severe.
“The workers sometimes wouldn’t even get paid that week. They were scared to report the violations to anyone. They feared their boss and the government due to deportation,” said Philip Lawhon, assistant business manager/organizer for Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 520.
“One of our members said that it reminded him of working in Mexico. He said, ‘I came to America to get away from these types of issues.’”
More than 40 percent of construction employees are misclassified as independent contractors, according to the Build a Better Texas [6] report, released earlier this year by the Workers Defense Project.
