Redlands Contractor Cited by State for Wage Violations in Public Works Jobs

The following article was reported by City News Service: 

Four general contractors and their subcontractors on four public works jobs in Central and Southern California were cited for wage violations and fined a total of $748,366, state Labor Commissioner Julie Su announced Thursday.

The subcontractors cited included Cal Framing of Redlands, Canoga Park- based KAY General Services doing business as Rudy's Construction and Oceanside- based Campbell Certified Inc.

The prime contractors cited were Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Cyrcon Builders of Los Angeles, Intermountain Electric of Denver and Tidwell Concrete Construction of Indio.

The citations were for public works and labor law violations affecting a total of 89 workers employed by the general contractors and their subcontractors.
"Failure to pay the proper prevailing wage is a form of wage theft," said Labor Commissioner Su.

"We will crack down on not only the subcontractors who steal workers' wages and fail to pay apprenticeship training contributions, but also on the general contractors so we put proper incentives on them to deal only with honest, law-abiding businesses in California."

Tutor Perini, the prime contractor for building an Orange County public library branch in Laguna Niguel, subcontracted Cal Framing to do the framing in October 2011. But state investigators found Cal Framing failed to pay prevailing wage and overtime rates to 25 workers, according to the commission.    

Redlands-based Cal Framing was assessed $117,837 in unpaid wages, $30,800 in penalties and $539 in contributions to a Department of Industrial Relations-approved training program for the California Apprenticeship Council.

Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center in Los Angeles hired Cyrcon Builders for a job, and Cyrcon subcontracted KAY General Services, doing business as Rudy's Construction, to do masonry and carpentry in October 2011.

Labor Department investigators found Rudy's in violation of wage laws, and cited the company for $98,187 in unpaid wages, $24,075 in penalties and $2,307 in apprenticeship training funds.

Tidwell Concrete Construction, hired by the San Diego Community College District to build the Miramar Library Learning Resource Center in March 2010, was found to have failed to pay 16 workers the required hourly wage rates, CAC training fund contributions, or hire the number of apprentices as required by law.

The commission cited Tidwell for $152,079 in unpaid wages, $100,950 in penalties, $7,926 in unpaid training fund contributions and $16,000 in apprenticeship fines.