Alleged rape on Wilfs’ Viking Lakes development sparks outrage, calls for change

October 14, 2022 by

Barb Pecks (R), chair of the Carpenters union’s Sisters in the Brotherhood group, embraces Norma Izaguirre during a press conference on the Capitol steps.

A worker on the Viking Lakes project in Eagan came forward last week with allegations that she was raped and harassed while working for a drywall subcontractor on the troubled job site, developed by NFL owners Zygmunt, Mark and Leonard Wilf’s MV Ventures firm.

Unions and worker advocacy groups decried the alleged assault and, in a press conference on the Capitol steps Tuesday, issued an impassioned call for elected officials, developers, contractors and all workers to do more to stop exploitation of workers in the construction industry.

For developers like the Wilfs, that means cutting business ties with contractors that have public records of wage theft, worker misclassification and other labor abuses.

Absolute Drywall, which employed Norma Izaguirre and her alleged rapist, Diego Medina, has been cited for child labor, misclassification of workers and failure to pay overtime. The state Labor Department also found that the firm submitted false and misleading claims in response to an investigation.

Yet when representatives of the Carpenters union and the local worker center CTUL tried to warn MV Ventures about Absolute Drywall’s track record of exploitation, they were instructed to leave the property, CTUL Co-Director Veronica Mendez Moore said.

“They kicked us off the site and wouldn’t even let us go in and talk with workers, to see what the conditions were like,” she said. “They said to us that they could handle this themselves.”

By last spring, more than 40 workers employed on the Viking Lakes project had come forward to report wage theft, alleging Absolute and other subcontractors had cheated them out of over $100,000 in combined wages. Several workers reported their claims to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

Madeline Lohman, a senior researcher for The Advocates for Human Rights, said developers that turn a blind eye to subcontractors’ potential violations of wage rules, safety standards and other worker protections too often foster an “environment of impunity,” ripe for more serious abuses.

“Many of the labor trafficking victims that we have served at The Advocates first came forward because of stolen wages, untreated workplace injuries or child labor that had been overlooked, and only afterwards was the trafficking uncovered,” she said. “If developers and large employers … allow smaller abuses to go unchecked, greater ones will flourish in those gaps.”

In fact, Izaguirre told the Minnesota Reformer website that she is among the workers on the Viking Lakes development who have filed complaints of unpaid wages.

She said Medina lured her to work for Absolute Drywall as a cleaner at Viking Lakes and other developments. After several months, he began making sexual advances and touching her inappropriately, eventually raping her in one of the apartments’ showers, according to her report.

Medina threatened violence against Izaguirre and her family if she reported the abuse. But on the Capitol steps, she stood up to the podium and explained what prompted her to come forward.

“I want everyone in the state of Minnesota to make sure no other woman is treated like I was on a construction project,” she said through an interpreter. “My question for Minnesota developers and construction companies is this: what are you going to do to prevent this from happening to another woman?”

One option for developers is to hire union contractors, whose employees can report abuses to their representatives and whose wages and benefits are spelled out in a collective bargaining agreement.

Or, Mendez Moore said, developers should sign a pledge with the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council, requiring all contractors on their developments to uphold basic labor standards and agreeing to allow independent monitoring – with legally binding enforcement mechanisms – on their work sites. CTUL is ramping up public pressure on several prominent non-union developers to join the council.

Local elected officials, meanwhile, should require accountability measures on all approved projects to ensure workers are not being exploited in their cities, union officials said.

“If one of the most powerful families in Minnesota is not stepping up to prevent horrific worker abuse, it’s time for local governments and the state Legislature to step in,” said Adam Duininck, director of government affairs with the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (NCSRCC).

Construction workers – union and non-union – have an important role to play, too, said Barb Pecks, a business representative with the NCSRCC and chair of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters’ Sisters in the Brotherhood committee. She said the union would soon begin working with its contractors to train all members in identifying and reporting labor abuses.

“I can’t say enough about your bravery and courage,” Pecks told Izaguirre on the Capitol steps.

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Trades push Royal Credit Union to ditch contractor accused of underpaying immigrant workers

June 1, 2022 by

Building Trades representatives join a protest outside Royal Credit Union in Inver Grove Heights.

Efforts to stop worker exploitation in the Twin Cities construction industry continued to gain momentum today, as construction unions called out Royal Credit Union for using an out-of-state masonry contractor accused by watchdog groups of underpaying immigrant laborers.

As the credit union cut the ribbon inside a newly acquired and refurbished branch in Inver Grove Heights, worker advocates set up a protest outside with signs, banners and an inflatable fat cat clutching a construction worker with one claw.

Unions accuse Eau Claire, Wis., contractor Stone Pro Concrete and Masonry of putting the squeeze on immigrants hired through the H-2B visa program, which allows employers to seek seasonal help when they are unable to hire enough U.S. workers.

The federal program requires employers to pay minimum wage rates based on the location and type of work performed. But after interviewing over a dozen H-2B visa holders on multiple Stone Pro job sites, representatives of the Laborers union (LIUNA) determined the contractor was underpaying workers by as much as $8 per hour.

“They bring on these workers as carpenter’s helpers, but they actually do concrete and masonry work, which is a totally different pay scale,” said Octavio Chung Bustamante, a marketing representative with LIUNA who has been investigating Stone Pro since 2019.

When Bustamante and other union representatives learned Stone Pro would be working on Royal’s new retail office in Little Canada, they took their findings to the credit union.

“We did reach out to Royal Credit Union on May 5,” Bustamante said. “We went to the branch manager in the St. Paul location, but we didn’t hear back.”

As a result, LIUNA and other unions active in the #NotOnMyWatch campaign decided to drop in on the ribbon cutting in Inver Grove Heights – and bring along their inflatable fat cat.

Organizers also circulated copies of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic Facebook content attributed to Stone Pro’s owner. Bustamante called it “hypocritical” for a company turning profits off immigrant labor – and contrary to Royal Credit Union’s stated values.

“It’s not about union or non-union,” Bustamante said. “It’s about making sure the industry is fair for everyone.”

The #NotOnMyWatch campaign brings together unions and community groups like Twin Cities worker center CTUL to identify cases of abuse and assist exploited workers in Minnesota’s construction industry.

“We’ve seen horrific abuse in this industry, from wage theft to dangerous working conditions,” CTUL Co-Director Merle Payne said. “So we’re calling on large developers and users like Royal Credit Union to take steps to use responsible contractors, to step up and make a difference.”

CTUL members who work in the multifamily residential construction industry launched a campaign last month to pressure large developers in the Twin Cities to partner with them in keeping wage theft, labor trafficking and other abuses off their job sites. They call it the Building Dignity and Respect program.

Organizers will announce the next steps in that campaign – including which contractors they will push to sign onto the new program – at a march and rally June 16, beginning at noon at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.

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Workers seek commitment from developers to build with ‘dignity and respect’

May 13, 2022 by

As allegations of wage theft continue to bubble up from the Twin Cities’ nonunion construction industry, a worker-led initiative aims to partner with developers to keep labor abuses off their job sites.

After months of behind-the-scenes planning and organizing, construction workers this week publicly invited local developers to join the Building Dignity and Respect (BDR) program and agree to uphold basic human-rights standards for everyone working on their projects, including workers employed by subcontractors.

Post-construction cleaning worker Daniel Sanchez estimates that he has lost over $110,000 to wage theft over 10 years working in the industry. He said layers of contractors and subcontractors should not shield developers from responsibility for abuses on their projects.

“Morally, developers have to be accountable for what’s happening on their job sites,” Sanchez said during an event to roll out the BDR program in Minneapolis yesterday. “We know we’re not going to change this industry by getting rid of just one subcontractor. Developers need to work with us to stop wage theft.”

Sanchez and other construction workers, who have been organizing with the local worker center CTUL, called out a handful of local developers by name, urging Doran Properties Group, MWF Properties, Solhem Companies, United Properties and YellowTree to come to the table with BDR now, before workers and their community allies ramp up the public pressure.

CTUL Co-Director Merle Payne said the campaign would target three large, multi-family construction developers – assuming they have not yet signed onto an agreement with the BDR – with a public action June 16. CTUL’s previous campaigns include a groundbreaking effort to pressure big-box retailers like Target and Best Buy take responsibility for the labor practices of its cleaning contractors.

“Housing developers in the Twin Cities are at a crossroads,” Payne said. “On one path, they can choose to ensure basic dignity and respect for the workers who develop their projects and who build our cities either by signing into the BDR program or by using 100% union labor. On the other path, developers can continue business as usual, maintaining an industry with rampant wage theft, dangerous working conditions and, at the extreme, labor trafficking.”

An advisory council assembled by county attorneys in Ramsey and Hennepin counties earlier this year approved a report estimating that wage theft costs construction workers over $3 million in wages each year, and diverts over $11 million from Social Security and Medicare funds.

While prosecutors and state regulators have begun stepping up efforts to hold contractors accountable, the BDR program is setting out to stop wage theft before it happens.

Developers that participate in BDR would sign a legally binding agreement to protect workers on their projects from wage theft, physical and sexual abuse and human trafficking, and to provide them with safe working conditions and fair pay.

The BDR Standards Council would provide education to workers about their rights and protections, and monitor participating developers’ job sites to ensure compliance.

“If a contractor refuses to maintain compliance, they will no longer be able to work for developers that participate in the Building Dignity and Respect program,” said Doug Mork, executive director of the Standards Council.

The program follows what’s known as the “Worker-driven Social Responsibility model,” which agricultural workers in Florida successfully used to raise standards in an industry with similarly murky relationships between landowners, labor brokers, contractors and workers.

CTUL member Pedro Carbajal, a painter on local construction sites, was among local workers who traveled to Florida for a firsthand look at how the model works.

“If they can do it there, we can do it here,” he said. “We may work in different industries – farm work and construction – but what unites us is the cause, what unites us is the suffering we’ve lived. And together, we can change this.”

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Wilfs’ company turned deaf ear to warnings of wage theft at Viking Lakes development

May 10, 2022 by

Abel Susteito speaks at a Capitol press conference about his experience with wage theft on the Viking Lakes apartment project in Eagan.

Tradespeople who worked on the Viking Lakes luxury apartments in Eagan went public last week with accusations of wage theft on the project, owned and developed by the same family that owns the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

Worker advocacy groups, including the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (NCSRCC), pinned responsibility for the alleged labor abuses on the Wilfs, whose company, MV Ventures, ignored the groups’ repeated warnings that subcontractors awarded work on the project had a track record of labor violations and dishonesty.

“MV Ventures is a Wilf-family company. MV Ventures develops the project, hires the subcontractors and has control of the project from start to finish,” Carpenters General Council Burt Johnson said. “They are responsible.”

The union said it has heard from more than 40 workers on the Viking Lakes project who said they were not paid what they were owed, and two workers at a Capitol press conference May 5 confirmed reporting the wage theft to Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry.

But any civil or criminal penalties resulting from an investigation are likely to fall on the subcontractors, prompting calls from community leaders for the Wilfs and MV Ventures to do the right thing now.

Veronica Mendez Moore, co-director of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, said MV Ventures should meet with unions to resolve the allegations stemming from Viking Lakes, and sign a pledge with the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council requiring all contractors on its developments to uphold basic labor standards.

Javier Mendez Velasco speaks to reporters about his experience installing siding at the Viking Lakes apartments.

Mendez Moore also noted the Wilfs benefited from nearly half a billion dollars in public subsidies to build the Vikings’ new stadium in Minneapolis.

“This is a family that needs to be held to a higher standard,” she said. “They need to partner with the community to better ensure standards for all of the people in our city.”

‘Constantly tired’

Despite working for different subcontractors, Javier Mendez Velasco and Abel Susteito described similar labor standards on the 261-unit, luxury apartment project at Viking Lakes. Both said they were paid wages lower than what they were initially promised, with no overtime or holiday pay and no vacation or health insurance benefits.

That was a standard arrangement, Mendez Velasco said, at subcontractors like Advantage Construction and Property Maintenance and Construction (PMC), which employed him to do siding work on the Wilf family’s Eagan development site. In over three years with Advantage and PMC, Mendez Velasco said he never received overtime pay, despite working six or seven days per week, sometimes from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“We were constantly tired, but our boss wasn’t understanding,” Mendez Velasco said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “He would never help us out.”

Susteito hung drywall at Viking Lakes from November 2020 to August 2021 as an employee of Absolute Drywall, a company local unions have been calling out for several years, pointing to past citations for child labor, misclassification of workers and failure to pay overtime. The state Labor Department also found that Absolute Drywall submitted false and misleading claims in response to an investigation.

“I want to ask the Department of Labor to keep fighting for our rights, and for better pay for us,” Susteito said at the press conference.

Carpenters union official Adam Duininck says he and others suggested ways the Wilfs’ company could prevent wage theft on the Viking Lakes project. “Our suggestions just were not taken seriously,” he said.

Profit before public interest

Advocates for construction workers say exploitation is baked into the industry’s business model, with layers of contractors, subcontractors and labor brokers that insulate developers like the Wilfs from responsibility for working conditions and standards on their projects.

Immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable.

“We came here to work, and we have our own dreams. But we were taken advantage of,” Mendez Velasco said. “As immigrant workers we are taken advantage of for our hard work, for our dedication, but also because we don’t have the knowledge and the available resources.”

Union representatives warned the Wilfs’ development company, MV Ventures, about their subcontractors’ checkered background “ad nauseam,” according to Adam Duininck, NCSRCC’s director of government affairs. He said the union also urged the developer to be proactive in preventing wage theft.

“We suggested a number of ways to get ahead of wage theft, including jobsite monitoring and working with outside groups to monitor payroll,” Duininck said. “Our suggestions just were not taken seriously.”

As a result, workers like Susteito, Mendez Velasco and dozens of others are still waiting to be made whole for their work building luxury apartments that are now renting at prices between $1,600 and $2,245 per month.

“These workers take great risk when they come forward and talk to the public about what’s going on,” Johnson said. “We need to believe them.”

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