Совет Нового Орлеана ужесточит контроль за строительными подрядчиками и введет штрафы за нарушения

Five years after the New Orleans City Council adopted rules to protect workers on city construction sites, the council aims to give those rules more teeth amid complaints from labor leaders about minimum wage violations and other exploitation. The council’s Economic Development Committee on Tuesday voted 3-0 to levy financial penalties upon problematic employers, expand the types of contracts the rules cover and expose employer violations in a public database. A full council vote is expected Sept. 3. “Most of the city's contractors do excellent work and comply with a living wage ordinance, classify their workers correctly, and employ licensed subcontractors,” said Council Vice President Matt Willard, who sponsored the new ordinance. “Unfortunately, a few do not.” Labor leaders cheered the changes on Thursday. “It's not just like it's happening a little, here or there. It's rampant,” said Chip Fleetwood, secretary-treasurer of Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, of unpaid overtime and other problems on construction sites. “I could take you to job sites right now where people are being cheated. And I'm talking about jobs that this city has invested in,” Fleetwood said, declining to name specific sites. The city’s “responsible bidder” law, passed in 2021, requires contractors to certify compliance with labor laws and to disclose investigations into their labor practices. The law already provides that labor violations are grounds for termination of city contracts, but it lacks procedures for investigating complaints. The rewritten law would require city officials to regularly evaluate every contractor and investigate possible violations within 30 days. Administrative judges would then rule on alleged violations, which – in addition to possible termination – would result in a $500 fine for the first violation and $1,000 for additional ones. The revised law would apply to nonprofits that receive city grant funding, in addition to the city’s public works contractors and consultants. The law would not apply to agreements with external public agencies, and exceptions would be allowed for emergency contracts and for residential developers seeking restoration tax abatements. The city’s chief administrative officer would also be authorized to exempt particular contracts when a “non-responsible” contractor is the only option for services that “are necessary to the proper functioning of the city.” Labor leaders and Council President JP Morrell said Thursday that there is a concerning trend of contractors using staffing brokers who take a cut of workers’ pay. Making matters worse, they said, workers hired through brokers are often stiffed on overtime pay because they are improperly classified as independent contractors, as opposed to employees. Morrell said this is likely leading to violations of the city’s living wage ordinance, which requires city contractors to pay an hourly wage of $16.01. “They're showing on paper this person is making $17, $18 an hour, but they might be making $12 because the broker is taking a cut off the top,” Morrell said. A representative from the local chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry membership group, did not immediately return a request for comment. Some supporters of the council’s move said there is still more to do. They called for the city to publicize an audit of its contractors that aimed to determine compliance with the living wage ordinance, local hiring and rules meant to benefit disadvantaged businesses. Matt Olson, policy director at the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, said the audit – which was funded with federal pandemic aid – was completed in 2024, but hasn’t been released. “The public deserves to know the results in order to help shape future contractor oversight, accountability and best practices,” Olson said.