Feds: $56M settlement with NYC construction firm

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK

A construction company whose projects included the stadium where the New York Mets play and the Sept. 11 Memorial agreed to pay up to $56 million in penalties and restitution after admitting a decade-long fraud that included routinely overcharging customers and ignoring minority hiring mandates, authorities announced Tuesday.

A deferred prosecution agreement in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn described the penalty and restitution to be paid by Lend Lease U.S. Construction, a division of an international construction company that employed more than 1,000 workers during the 10-year stretch from 1999 through 2009.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk said the deal capped a three-year investigation "into a systemic pattern of audacious fraud by one of the world's largest construction firms."

U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said the company "deceived their customers and stole taxpayer dollars" while abusing a program designed to benefit and train minority contractors.

"The defense of `everyone does it' will not be a shield against law enforcement," she said.

In court papers, prosecutors described how the company routinely overbilled clients including federal, state and local government contracting agencies. The government said James Abadie, who formerly led the company's New York office, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud for overbilling Bovis' clients for more than a decade. Abadie, 55, faces up to 20 years in prison.

The company regularly added up to two hours of unworked overtime to timesheets for labor foremen and charged customers for weeks when foremen were on vacation or out sick, court papers said.

The government said the company also duped the states of New York and New Jersey into believing it had complied with programs designed to boost the participation of small construction companies and companies owned by women or minorities on public construction projects when it had not.

Although New Jersey eliminated its minority and women-owned portion of its program in 2003, obligations incorporated into contracts for public construction projects remained intact, court papers said.

As an example of how minority hiring requirements were dodged, prosecutors described an instance in which Lend Lease U.S. Construction falsely claimed that a company certified as a minority hiring unit would perform 100 percent of the general contract work on construction at the Bronx Criminal Courthouse.

In reality, Lend Lease U.S. Construction performed most of the work itself by directly managing the union, the government said. It said the company placed many of its long-term union employees on the minority-hiring compliant company's payroll, hired other workers and relegated the smaller company's role to providing paychecks for work performed by or at the direction of Lend Lease U.S. Construction employees.

In a statement, the company said it has fully and extensively cooperated in the probe since 2009.

"We accept responsibility for what happened in the past and have agreed to continue to make restitution to the affected clients," said Robert McNamara, chief executive officer of Lend Lease Americas region.

The company was formerly known as Bovis Lend Lease LMB Inc. or Bovis. It was still known as Bovis when a fatal fire occurred during its demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan.

Other projects on which it worked included the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, the U.S. Post Office and U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Brooklyn, Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan and various schools in New Jersey's Abbott Districts, where authorities say the company also acted fraudulently to avoid complying with minority hiring laws.

The deferred prosecution agreement spares the company from three counts of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud if it carries out its promises over the next two years.

The company has pledged to pay the $40.5 million penalty, along with restitution of more than $15 million to victims of the overbilling scheme and to comply in the future with all federal and state criminal laws. It has already paid the city of New York $5 million, $4 million of which is credited against the $40.5 million penalty.

The company also acknowledged in the deal that it has fired or forced resignations of officers and employees responsible for the misdeeds and reduced the responsibilities of others involved in the misconduct.

The government said it permitted the company to avoid criminal prosecution because of its extensive cooperation, its acceptance of responsibility, remedial actions it took voluntarily and its assurances that it will be a model of integrity in the construction industry in New York.

Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9UBFV4G2.htm

If I Had A Hammer

NATIONAL

If I Had A Hammer

BY

JANE LATOUR

 MARCH 30, 2012

ISSUE #

175

Women are part of almost every blue-collar workplace. They’re behind the scenes, alongside the men. They’re installing fiber optics for a telecom company, fixing Con Edison equipment in the “manholes,” behind the stage providing sound and lighting for Broadway shows, and on construction sites around the city. Almost five decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with its Title VII provisions for equal employment opportunity, and subsequent struggles through which women won the right to enter any apprentice program for the skilled trades — to become carpenters, electricians, painters and plumbers or join the fire department — they’re on the job. But their numbers are low, and consequently they remain invisible. And that’s a problem.

As long as women make up a statistically insignificant proportion of the blue-collar workforce, they’re all too often viewed as what groundbreaking carpenter Irene Soloway called “the creature with two heads.” As long as they are a tiny minority on any job, harassment and discrimination will continue. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the pioneers challenged stereotypes and broke barriers on the far frontier of feminism. Yet the persistence of discrimination leads directly to problems of recruitment and retention — posing a Catch-22 for women working in skilled blue-collar jobs. For Women’s History Month, I surveyed some of the women working in these jobs and some who paved the way for others. These firsthand reports tell us what improvements have been made and what still needs to change in order to extend the gains of the women’s movement to the working class.

Female firefighters

While the New York City Fire Department has made great strides since the days of litigating, demonstrating and other forms of outright opposition to females in the ranks, there are currently only 28 female firefighters in a force of more than 11,000. The good news is that more than 2,600 women have applied to take the test to become a firefighter, according to Regina Wilson, president of United Women Firefighters.

Firefighter JoAnn Jacobs was among the first group of 40 women to enter the department in 1982, and she has recruited, mentored and trained women in preparation for prior tests. “I think that the presence of women firefighters on TV shows and in commercials makes a difference,” she said. “It’s a visual cue to women. You only need one for a woman to see something that gets her thinking: I can do that, too. They’ve grown up seeing this. Young women are so much more physical and strong. And then their husbands and boyfriends are encouraging them. Men see women doing kick boxing and other things that are outside the conventional female stereotypes. Women have stepped out of the traditional roles and images and these things are all making a difference.”

Then again, stereotypes endure, as Eileen Sullivan, a pioneering tractor-trailer driver, can attest. “This woman cab driver assured me that she was qualified to drive because she was a laid-off tractor-trailer driver. I assured her I would be fine with her driving but was disappointed that she felt the need to point it out — until she mentioned how many women refused to drive with her and would order another cab,” she said.

Tile setter Angela Olszewski offers another perspective — about life inside her former union, Local 7, Bricklayers. “The union’s public relations apparatus regularly exploited my intelligence, aptitude and skills,” Olszewski recalled. “I appeared in union videos, newsletters and performed installation demonstrations. Ironically, at the same time my union appointed me to their Women’s Task Force in 2001, I was also begging my employer, the local, and my apprentice coordinator to be trained in the higher skill sets of my craft. In my former union, women are nothing more than a novelty and are not taken seriously.”

Fwd: The Sky is the Limit for NYC Tradeswomen

From NEW newsletter

June 2011 NEW 2011 Equity Leadership Awards Luncheon 2011 Equity Leadership Tradeswoman Honoree Ana Taveras On June 9th, NEW celebrated the women who build New York City at our annual Luncheon. Over 700 industry leaders and NEW supporters were in attendance to honor the 2011 Equity Leadership Honorees and to celebrate the owners, contractors, unions, and employers who are helping to open doors for NEW graduates every day. "NEW showed me a door that I never knew existed, a door of opportunity. NEW unlocked that door for me, the Laborers opened the door, and I pushed through and marched right in." Ana Taveras, NEW Graduate Laborer, Local 79 Organizing Coordinator, Laborers Eastern Region Organizing Fund Watch Ana tell her story How You Can Help Anthony Berardo, Director of Construction, Ronsco, Inc. and Lizbeth Lasso, NEW Graduate Hire a NEW Graduate for a Short-Term Job NEW has screened and qualified candidates available immediately for temporary job opportunities. Learn more about how NEW can meet your temporary employment needs. "We are a better business because of it." Susan Hayes Cauldwell Wingate Company, LLC The internship at Ronsco was a phenomenal experience. I saw women in the work place and it gave me the confidence I needed." Lizbeth Lasso NEW Graduate Students in NEW shop Learn more about NEW and how you can help Do you want to learn more about NEW? Would you like to meet NEW students and graduates? Contact Jennifer Williford to schedule a tour of NEW's training center or to learn how you can get involved. "Our first step was to visit NEW's headquarters on 20th Street. We were impressed by the classrooms including the carpentry shop and the drywall mockup, but most importantly by the students enrolled in the program that we met that day." Louise Matthews Vice President, Global Real Estate and Facilities Avon Products, Inc. Photo by Kelsy Chauvin© Josefina Calcano Carpenter NYC District Council of Carpenters Before NEW, I didn't know which direction my life was going in. I didn't have a secure job. I always knew that I enjoyed working with my hands and building things. I just wasn't aware that it was a possibility for me to do construction work as a career. I didn't know about NEW. Being at NEW was an awesome experience. I got to meet great women and we bonded. I put down some roots at NEW. It's where I started my journey as a tradeswoman. And it's made a real difference in my life. I have a secure job with benefits and a good pay rate. I can take care of my family. I am working on the World Trade Center Tower 4. It's great to see so many women working on this project. NEW is helping to build New York and women are playing a big role in that. I love being surrounded by women who are in the trades just like me. There should be even more tradeswomen working on job sites, more of us to build New York City. QUICK LINKS Website Donate Mailing List Facebook The Sky is the Limit "Before NEW, the ceiling was a lot lower as far as my earnings, as far as what I could hope to achieve. With this trade, the sky is the limit." Tara Van Ness, NEW Graduate Plumber, Local 1 Hear what other tradeswomen and industry leaders are saying about NEW Watch NEW's film "The Sky is the Limit" NEW Partners with Brooklyn Community Foundation NEW is proud to announce a recent grant award made by the Brooklyn Community Foundation. The Foundation works to improve the lives of people in Brooklyn by strengthening communities through local giving, grantmaking and community service. This support will allow NEW to continue to help women move from poverty to prosperity through a career in the skilled trades. Nontraditional Employment for Women | 243 West 20th Street, New York, NY | (212) 627-6252 | www.new-nyc.org