Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced that since taking office in January 2023, she has secured more than $4.5 million in restitution and penalties for wage theft and other workers rights’ violations within the construction industry. AG Campbell has secured these back wages and penalties through more than 500 enforcement actions, including citations and settlements, which have collectively resulted in nearly 3,000 construction workers receiving over $2.8 million in back pay and over 270 employers paying over $1.7 million in penalties to the Commonwealth.
In Massachusetts, more than 1 in 4 workers in the construction industry are immigrants. In recent months, these immigrant workers have reported higher rates of retaliation in the workplace. Immigrant workers can be disproportionately vulnerable to illegal employment practices, including wage theft, retaliation, and other harms.
Retaliation against workers for complaining about wage theft is illegal and an enforcement priority of the Attorney General’s Office (AGO)’s Fair Labor Division. AG Campbell encourages workers and employers to review the AGO’s Advisory on the Rights of Immigrant Workers. The Advisory affirms that all workers, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to employment protections, including the right to a fair wage, protection from retaliation, classification as an employee, and freedom from sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace.
“Our state laws protect all Massachusetts workers from exploitation in the workplace,” said AG Campbell. “My team and I will continue to enforce worker protection laws in all industries, including in construction, where immigrant workers are particularly susceptible to having their rights violated by unscrupulous employers.”
“Union organizers have been speaking to and representing the interests of exploited workers in the construction industry for more than 140 years. We are in a period of extreme abuse. The illegal behavior of Optiline, Remby, Avatar, Earth Evolution and Cuccio are not outliers, nor are they a surprise to us. They are examples of routine business practices we see every day,” said Director of Organizing Noel Xavier of the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters. “Contractors hide behind layers of “subcontracting” to avoid accountability. At the same time, they take advantage of a broken system and the vulnerability of immigrant workers to intimidate and threaten. Workers and honest employers in a competitive bid industry have little hope of success under these conditions.”
Throughout AG Campbell’s term, the AGO has taken enforcement actions against employers within the construction industry for violations of various employment laws. These include the state’s wage and hour laws, the Earned Sick Time Law, the Prevailing Wage Law, and laws regarding retaliation for asserting workplace rights, including the right to pursue an employment complaint. Recent notable enforcement actions include:
- The AGO imposed $15,000 in penalties against Optiline Enterprises, LLC (Optiline), a New Hampshire-based construction company operating on various construction projects in Massachusetts, for retaliating against employees who filed a private lawsuit against the company over alleged violations of Massachusetts’ wage and hour laws. A judge found that Optiline made threatening and intimidating statements, including some related to immigration status, in an attempt to coerce the employees into dropping the lawsuit. This matter was referred to the AGO by the North Atlantic States Council of Carpenters.
- The AGO entered into a settlement totaling over $370,000, with Remby Contractors, LLC (Remby), a Virginia-based construction company performing work in Hyannis, for alleged violations of nonpayment of minimum wage and overtime, failure to provide paystubs, misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and failure to track accrual and usage of earned sick time.
- The AGO entered into another settlement, totaling over $320,000, with Avatar Construction Corporation (Avatar), a Watertown-based construction company, in relation to alleged prevailing wage theft on municipal construction projects in Cambridge, Lawrence, Saugus, and Watertown. The settlement resolved a lawsuit filed by the AGO, alleging that the company used fraudulent payroll forms prepared by a subcontractor to comply with the Prevailing Wage Law, despite workers actually being paid less than half of what they were owed.
- The AGO issued over $101,400 in citations against Earth Evolution Inc. (Earth Evolution), a Lawrence-based asbestos removal and demolition company, for misclassifying employees as independent contractors, failing to make timely payments to workers, and failing to provide accurate payroll records to the AGO during its investigation.
- The AGO also issued over $36,570 in citations against Cuccio Masonry Co., Inc. (Cuccio), a Burlington-based masonry company, for failing to permit employees to earn and use sick time as legally required, failing to pay proper overtime rates to employees for hours worked in excess of forty hours per week, and failing to maintain accurate payroll records.
In accordance with state and federal law, the AGO works to serve and protect all workers, without regard to immigration status, does not ask about workers’ immigration status, and does not voluntarily provide workers’ personal information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Workers in Massachusetts who believe their workplace rights have been violated are encouraged to file a complaint with the AGO’s Fair Labor Division at mass.gov/ago/fld. For more information about the state’s employment laws, workers may call the AGO’s Fair Labor Hotline at (617) 727-3465 or visit mass.gov/ago/fairlabor for information available in multiple languages.
Original source can be found here.