State Comptroller Sean Scanlon on Monday proposed a bill that would allow his office to halt payments to state contractors that are under investigation by the Labor Department for wage law violations.
Joined by members of the legislature’s Labor Committee and representatives of organized labor for a news conference in the Legislative Office Building, Scanlon said the bill, if approved, would allow his office to take action against companies and contractors who are violating the state’s prevailing wage law.
“As the CFO for the state of Connecticut, we sign every check,” Scanlon said. “If this bill passes, I will make sure that if there’s a company or a contractor out there that’s shortchanging workers, we’re going to shortchange them.”
Asked whether withholding payments would violate a contractor’s right to due process, the Comptroller’s office responded that it would not. “Any payment suspensions we’d institute would be referred to us from the Department of Labor, who follow their processes and procedures for potential wage theft violations,” a spokesperson said.
Scanlon was joined at the news conference by Kimberly Glassman, director of the Wethersfield-based Foundation for Fair Contracting. The organization’s mission is to promote compliance with laws and regulations related to public works construction.
Glassman applauded both Scanlon and the Labor Committee for agreeing to raise and support the bill.
“Just this past July, the Auditors of Public Accounts released a report that found that the Connecticut Department of Labor has a backlog of complaints,” she said. “Over 1,000 that have yet to be assigned to an investigator.”
She noted that, for the past two years, the Labor Committee has passed, with strong bipartisan support, “a bill that would double the number of wage and workplace investigators, and they’ve raised that concept again this year.”
Glassman said the comptroller’s bill would create another tool that could be used to recover lost wages and make restitution for workers.
The Labor Department’s Wage and Workplace investigators have “a lot of success in getting companies to come into compliance and in recovering restitution and civil penalties,” she said. “However, in those cases where the Department of Labor has exhausted their enforcement mechanisms, they can refer a matter to the state’s attorney for criminal action, to the attorney general for civil action, or they can begin debarment proceedings with the comptroller’s bill.”
She added that the bill offers “a less punitive but quicker option to recover wages.”
Joe Toner, executive director of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, said the bill would not affect the more than 30,000 unionized construction workers in the state, because they work under collective bargaining agreements.
“This is for the unrepresented worker,” Toner said. “We want to make sure the unrepresented workers are being represented so they could enjoy the standard of life that we have in the unionized construction industry.”
Co-Chair Sen. Julie Kushner (D-Danbury) and vice chairs Sen. Jorge Cabrera (D-Hamden) and Rep. Derell Wilson (D-Norwich) represented the Labor Committee at the news conference. They all praised Scanlon for proposing the legislation and bringing the issue to the public’s attention.
“I don’t think the public likes cheaters, and we don’t think that people should be cheating workers,” Kushner said. “But they’re not just cheating the workers, they’re cheating the whole system. They’re cheating when it comes to workers comp, they’re cheating when it comes to taxes, and they’re the good guys out there that are actually following the rules. So you’re hurting other contractors as well.”
Kushner added she believes the bill not only offers a way to curb the cheating, but to have the “ability to do it quickly through a measure taken by the comptroller’s office will make a big difference.”
