CT Labor Dept.: Off-the-Books Wages Paid at Two Norwalk Construction Sites

When state Labor Department inspectors paid surprise visits to two Norwalk construction projects on Wednesday, they found workers who said they were paid in cash by some companies and cases of missing or incorrect worker compensation insurance.

At one of the construction sites, the Waypointe development on Orchard Street in central Norwalk, “we had some people hiding in closets,” when the inspectors showed up, said Resa Spaziani, supervisor of the department’s fraud unit. The other construction site, on Grove Street, was run by Building and Land Technology of Stamford.

David Jarvis, a labor organizer with the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, was protesting the use of non-union labor at the Waypointe site on Thursday and Friday. He said he had been told that workers started hiding in bathtubs or running out one side of the site when Labor Department inspectors came in from the other side.

Jarvis and other protestors from the carpenters union stood just outside the worksite on Wednesday with a large inflatable rat, according to an article in The Hour. Jarvis told Patch that the union wanted people to know that underhanded labor practices were a way that companies prevent workers in Connecticut from getting decent wages and proper workers compensation insurance.

“It’s still going on — it’s still happening,” Jarvis said. “We want to make the public aware of some of the reasons why they’re not working [in these jobs]. [...] There’s plenty of room for people to have a decent wage.”

A total of eight subcontractors, most of them from out of state, were cited by the inspectors for some violation of state or federal labor law, Spaziani said — either the companies were paying workers in cash and without taxes being withheld, or they failed to buy worker compensation insurance or bought the wrong kind, or some combination of those violations.

At the Waypointe site, these subcontractors were cited:

• Best Option Remodeling of Newark, NJ
• Grow Masonry of East Newark, NJ
• Absolute Painting of Hillsborough, NJ
• Blackhawk Construction of Wolcott
• Complete Professional Restoration of Meriden

At the Grove Street site, these subcontractors were cited:

• U.S. Framing of Kentucky
• Patriot Carpentry of Kentucky
• T.D. Construction of Kentucky (a Web search shows that there are a number of different companies around the country named “T.D. Construction,” many of them appear to be unrelated)

Stop-work orders were issued for each subcontractor cited, and the businesses will need to show the Labor Department that they’ve fixed the problem, paid any back taxes and have proper workers compensation insurance before they can begin work again — and they’ll have to pay a fine, Spaziani said.

Norwalk Patch left messages early Friday afternoon asking for comment with Paxton B. Kinol, a partner at Belpointe Capital, LLC., developer of Waypointe. Kinol did not call back as of the time this article was published (this article will be updated if he does).

Kinol said the project wouldn’t be delayed because of the stop-work orders, and the subcontractors should be able to fix problems related to improper insurance situations, according to The Hour.

Norwalk Patch also asked for comment from David Waters, general counsel for Building and Land Technology, the Stamford company in charge of the Grove Street project.

“This is a prime example of out-of-state contractors coming into our state, undermining area standards, and skirting the laws on the books,” Jarvis said in a news release from the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. “As we see the temperature climb and construction begin to pick up from the recession, we’ll see the number of cheating contractors grow along with it.”

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