First two builders join Twin Cities effort to protect nonunion construction workers

Jose Alfredo Gomez was working as a roofer in 2022 when he fell off a two-story house and landed in the hospital for five days.

Instead of filing an accident report, his boss urged Gomez to call his personal insurance. But Gomez, who was new to the state, didn’t have insurance. Gomez hasn’t been able to work in the industry since and said he had fractures in both elbows.

Because Gomez was classified as an independent contractor, his employer was off the hook for any medical bills.

During his fifth day in the hospital, Gomez received the first two bills for his care. He was charged $33,000 for medical treatments up to that point, but thanks to advocates at the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), his medical expenses were covered by his employer’s insurance.

Such employee misclassification, along with outright wage theft, are rampant in some sectors of the construction industry, according to CTUL.

Two years ago, CTUL launched the Building Dignity and Respect program to get developers to commit to upholding fair labor practices. Earlier this month, it announced the first Twin Cities builders to join the program — nonprofit housing developers Alliance Housing and Hope Community.

CTUL executive director Merle Payne said the move, after two years of organizing, shows workers that “change is coming” to the industry.

“Our hope is that having these two first developers sign into the program sends a message that this is possible,” he said in an interview.

According to construction workers surveyed by CTUL in 2019, close to half had experienced wage theft, usually in unpaid overtime. A third said fear of retaliation kept them from reporting concerns. Those workers cited threats of being fired, deported or kicked out of employer-provided housing as common forms of retaliation.

“When my problem happened, I had no information. [You’re] here only to work and [think] it’s all about making money to survive, but we don’t give each other time to inform ourselves,” Gomez said.

CTUL’s program uses a top-down approach where standards are enforced starting with the companies at the top of the labor contracting chain. Contractors underneath them at every tier of a project are required to abide by the standards set in the program.

The program includes standards for legal rights at work and establishes an independent monitoring system to ensure compliance. It requires participating developers to provide workers with paid safety training and inform them about their rights around wages and hours.

“We saw that there are some developers that choose to do the right thing and make sure that there’s good standards for workers,” Payne said. “And there’s some developers that we saw that seem to be cutting corners and trying to get the cheapest contracts possible.”

Gomez, who is now a volunteer member with CTUL, said an issue he’s seen in the local industry is intimidation or threats by contractors to their workers, specifically to members of the Hispanic community, because of the belief some of them may be in the country illegally.

According to Gomez, workers have had wages withheld under threats of possible deportations. Unauthorized workers are less likely to seek legal aid due to their legal status.

“What I want from this program is for other people not to suffer the same abuses that we’ve suffered in the past,” Gomez said. “This program is designed to prevent these abuses.”

CTUL said workers’ rights under the program will be shared in multiple languages.

Gomez specifically named Yellow Tree, United Properties, and Solhem Cos. as developers he’d like to see join the program. CTUL called for these companies, as well as Roers, Doran Properties Group, and MWF Properties, to adopt the standards.

Those working under developers in the program can report abuse to the standards council. After a complaint is made, the council will monitor contractors’ worksites to make sure they are complying with the standards.

If the council finds that a contractor is abusing workers, developers in CTUL’s program would be legally required to stop working with the contractor.

Speaking at his Eagan home on Monday, with his wife, Gladis Ondina Melara, at his side, Gomez said labor abuses victimize more than just workers.

He said wage theft and misclassifications end up affecting the workers’ families, too. In his case, and in others, the lack of wages means no food on the table for everybody a worker depends on.

Gomez described the past two years as “hard” for him and said speaking about his experiences has also been difficult, but when he does he said he has to mention his family because they suffered alongside him. He now credits the support of his wife and CTUL as his reasons for speaking out.

And he said he’ll continue telling his story until he sees more developers join the Building Dignity and Respect program.

“Wanting and doing are two separate things, there’s some [developers] that want [to join] but haven’t,” Gomez said. “The decision is on these developers if they want to sit down and form a team with us.”

About the partnership

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.