Jersey DOL Cites 5 Southeast Contractors for Misclassifying Workers

Contractors based in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia have been ordered to stop work in New Jersey and now face penalties for allegedly misclassifying workers.

The New Jersey Department of Labor said it had issued the orders after an investigation found that the contractors and subcontractors had classed workers as independent contractors, not employees, and did not provide proper benefits and wages.

“Misclassification not only costs our state’s workforce billions of dollars in vital funding to critical worker lifelines like unemployment insurance, it strips workers of their rights to these benefits entirely,” Joseph Petrecca, the assistant commissioner of wage and hour and contract compliance said in a statement.

Misclassifying workers has often been used as a way to avoid or reduce workers’ compensation premiums for construction companies. The department said the Division of Workers’ Compensation was still determining if the companies had the proper comp coverage.

The contractors were cited under a 2020 New Jersey law designed to make it easier to investigate and crack down on misclassification.

The department cited concrete contractor Carol Concrete of Lakeland, Florida, and four of its subcontractors that were working on a Brookfield Properties project in Monroe Township. The state lifted the stop-work order against Carol after an audit found that subcontractors had employed the misclassified workers.

The NJDOL also cited:

• 5 Star Reinforcement of Carrollton, Georgia
• Best Hernandez Construction of Charlotte, North Carolina
• Elite Pro Rebar of Stockbridge, Georgia
• Kico Construction of Kissimmee, Florida

The subcontractors owe more than $29,000 in back wages and penalties of more than $42,000.

The general contractor, ARCO Design/Build Industrial Philadelphia, a division of Arco Design/Build Companies Inc., with offices in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, was not cited.

Topics Florida Georgia New Jersey Contractors