News Release: Fort Myer Construction will pay $900K to settle discrimination and harassment case involving 371 women and minorities

OFCCP News Release: [09/17/2014]
Contact Name: Laura McGinnis or Michael Trupo
Phone Number: (202) 693-4653 or x6588
Email: McGinnis.Laura.K@dol.gov or Trupo.Michael@dol.gov
Release Number: 14-1513-PHI

Fort Myer Construction will pay $900K to settle discrimination and harassment case involving 371 women and minorities

WASHINGTON — Fort Myer Construction Corp. has agreed to settle charges that it violated Executive Order 11246 by failing to provide equal employment opportunities to employees and job applicants at 413 construction sites in the D.C. metropolitan area.

An agreement reached by the federal contractor and the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs resolves allegations that between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2010, the company discriminated against 27 qualified women and 136 qualified African Americans who applied for jobs as laborers, and unfairly terminated eight African American skilled laborers. It also resolves pay discrimination charges stemming from Fort Myer Construction's practice of assigning equally qualified workers performing the same jobs to projects paying different hourly rates, some with fewer work hours. This resulted in lower wages for 44 African American and 156 Hispanic laborers.

"Strong enforcement and vigilance are critical to opening doors of opportunity for more women and minorities in the construction industry, ensuring that all workers get an equal shot at getting to work on the highest-paying projects," said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu.

OFCCP's investigation of Fort Myer Construction began in January 2011 during the agency's review of companies involved in constructing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's consolidated headquarters in southeastern D.C. Because that project is valued above $25 million and will last more than a year, this undertaking has been designated by the Labor Department as a Mega Construction Project, which is a priority area for OFCCP. More than 300 workers were interviewed over the course of the compliance evaluation, which focused on Fort Meyer Construction's employment practices in 2010.

"Getting those workers in the door and keeping them is going to take more than improved applicant tracking and better pay policies," said OFCCP Mid-Atlantic Regional Director Michele Hodge. "It's going to take a concerted effort by Fort Myer Construction's leadership to change a culture that devalues too many workers."

During their investigation, OFCCP compliance officers received more than 30 phone calls alerting them to charges of harassment, intimidation, threats and coercion at work. The agency discovered that supervisors at Fort Myer Construction used hostile and derogatory language toward African American and Hispanic employees, as well as a disabled veteran. The supervisors sexually harassed and tried to date female subordinates. African American women were locked out of restroom facilities and had feces left in their work trucks. A company vice president tried to interfere in OFCCP's investigation by discouraging Hispanic employees from talking to agency inspectors conducting an onsite review. Even a female investigator from OFCCP was subjected to inappropriate sexual jokes by a superintendent while at a Fort Myer Construction work site.

Under the terms of the settlement, Fort Myer Construction will pay $900,000 in back wages and interest to 371 class members and make job offers to seven women and 30 African Americans from that class as laborer positions become available. The company has also agreed to undertake extensive training and monitoring measures to ensure that all its employment practices – including hiring, termination and compensation – fully comply with the laws enforced by OFCCP.

D.C.-based Fort Myer Construction builds, repairs and maintains streets, roads, bridges and underground utilities. In 2010, the company received more than $400 million in federal funds for work on 155 construction projects in the D.C. area. Some of its largest contracts that year were with the U.S. Department of Transportation, General Services Administration, Navy Department, National Park Service and Smithsonian Institution.

In addition to Executive Order 11246, OFCCP enforces Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. These three laws require that those who do business with the federal government, both contractors and subcontractors, follow the fair and reasonable standard that they not discriminate in employment on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, disability or status as a protected veteran. For more information, visit http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/.

Read this news release en Español.

Repost: Settlement Requires New Jersey Contractor, Plumbers’ Union to Recruit More Women

By Lorraine McCarthy

March 3 — A New Jersey mechanical contracting company agreed Feb. 24 to pay a total of $400,000 to settle allegations that it violated state law and regulations barring gender discrimination in employment by failing to employ female plumbers on jobs it handled, including many taxpayer-funded projects (In re Falasca Mech. Inc. and Plumbers & Pipefitters Local No. 332, N.J. Att'y Gen., No. EF14SB-61686, administrative consent order filed 2/24/14).

Under terms of the administrative consent order announced by the New Jersey Attorney General's office, Falasca Mechanical Inc. of Vineland, N.J., will make payments of $250,000 to the state and $150,000 to journeyman plumber Bette Feldeisen, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union No. 322.

Under its ongoing labor agreement with Local 322, Falasca staffs its projects by requesting workers from the union.

The state alleged that Falasca repeatedly hired less experienced, less qualified male plumbers over Feldeisen and in general failed to make a good-faith effort to employ female plumbers while handling millions of dollars in public works jobs.

Local 322, which is a non-paying party to the same settlement, agreed to join with Falasca in a cooperative effort to increase female recruitment into the union and to increase training and employment opportunities for female plumbers during the next three apprenticeship cycles.

Preferential Hiring of Men Alleged
Feldeisen worked for Falasca on occasional jobs beginning in 2000 and continuously from December 2006 through January 2009, when she was laid off for economic reasons, according to the state's summary of the case.

When the company was hired for a 2009 hospital construction project that required work on medical gas systems, Feldeisen, who holds a certification in medical gas installation, was passed over by Falasca and the union in favor of male plumbers who had fewer years of experience and who weren't certified in medical gas installation, according to the state.

In administrative complaints filed against Falasca and the union in September 2010, Feldeisen alleged that she was passed over repeatedly when Falasca sought plumbers through Local 322 for private and public projects, despite her experience and prior employment relationship with the contractor.

Her complaints alleged gender discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the state's Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) rules for public contractors.

The state's investigation showed that “for a period of at least four years, encompassing over 150 public contracts, Falasca has not been in compliance with the EEO rules when accepting and carrying out public contracts,’’ according to the consent order.

Hiring Goals, Recruitment Efforts Mandated
Under terms of its agreement with the state, Falasca makes no admission of wrongdoing or liability.

In addition to the monetary terms of the settlement, Falasca agreed to work with Local 322 to comply with state hiring goals for female workers.

The company also agreed to keep records for at least three years of its efforts to reach hiring goals for women for every public contract it is awarded, including records of all individuals requested or referred from a union and all those interviewed or hired.

Falasca also will develop its own anti-discrimination and EEO rules compliance policy, distribute it to all unions with which the company has a labor agreement, and provide mandatory training on the policy to all project managers, foremen, hiring personnel and the Local 322 business manager.

The settlement includes reporting and monitoring provisions to ensure compliance.

The Local 322 Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC) has committed to its own outreach and recruitment efforts to attract more women to the apprenticeship program.

The union agreed to undertake outreach to students in at least three vocational-technical high schools during the next five academic years to provide information about the plumbing industry as a career and to encourage first- and second-year female students to pursue careers in the trade.

Representatives of Falasca and Local 322 could not be reached for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lorraine McCarthy in Philadelphia at lmccarthy@bna.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan J. McGolrick at smcgolrick@bna.com

Repost: DC-area construction contractor to pay $875,000 to settle discrimination case with US Labor Department

News Release

OFCCP News Release: [10/30/2013]
Contact Name: Leni Fortson or Joanna Hawkins
Phone Number: (202) 861-5102 or x5101 
Email: uddyback-fortson.lenore@dol.gov or Hawkins.Joanna@dol.gov
Release Number: 13-1996-PHI

DC-area construction contractor to pay $875,000 to settle discrimination case with US Labor Department

Nearly 400 minority applicants to receive back wages as company reviews hiring practices

DULLES, Va. — The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that federal construction contractor M.C. Dean Inc. has settled allegations that it failed to provide equal employment opportunity to 381 African American, Hispanic and Asian American workers who applied for jobs at the company's Dulles headquarters. A review by the department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs determined that the contractor used a set of selection procedures, including invalid tests, which unfairly kept qualified minority candidates from securing jobs as apprentices and electricians.

"Our nation was built on the principles of fair play and equal opportunity, and artificial barriers that keep workers from securing good jobs violate those principles," said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu. "I am pleased that this settlement will provide remedies to the affected workers and that M.C. Dean has agreed to invest significant resources to improve its hiring practices so that this never happens again."

Under the terms of the agreement, M.C. Dean will pay $875,000 in back wages and interest to 272 African American, 98 Hispanic and 11 Asian American job applicants who were denied employment in 2010. The contractor will also extend 39 job offers to the class members as opportunities become available. Additionally, M.C. Dean has agreed to undertake extensive self-monitoring measures and personnel training to ensure that all of its employment practices fully comply with Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment on the bases of race, color and national origin.

M.C. Dean is a construction, design-build and systems integration corporation with more than 30 offices worldwide. Since 2006, the company has held more than $600 million in contracts with federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense.

In addition to Executive Order 11246, OFCCP enforces Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974. These three laws require those who do business with the federal government, contractors and subcontractors, to follow the fair and reasonable standard that they not discriminate in employment on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, disability or status as a protected veteran. For more information, please call OFCCP's toll-free helpline at 800-397-6251 or visit http://www.dol.gov/ofccp.  

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.

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