Q&A
HPD's response on wage enforcement and contractor selection
1:01:41
·
73 sec
Lucy Joffe from HPD responds to Council Member Restler's concerns, addressing issues of wage enforcement, wage theft, and contractor selection. She emphasizes the importance of enforcement mechanisms and explains HPD's perspective on the proposed legislation.
- Acknowledges the seriousness of wage theft and worker intimidation issues
- Suggests that changing worker pay may not directly address problems like bullying and wage theft
- Emphasizes the importance of enforcement mechanisms to combat these issues
- Expresses concern that more complicated wage schemes might narrow the market of available contractors
Lincoln Restler
1:01:41
Do you have any advice for me whether if you all said you don't support this legislation?
1:01:45
Do you have any mechanisms that I have leverage now to put pressure, to stop a bad actor from coming into our community, undermining, you know, the experience of workers, you know, in in my community on big complicated projects?
Carmen N. De La Rosa
1:02:02
So thank you for
Lucy Joffe
1:02:03
that question.
1:02:04
We take issues of wage enforcement, wage theft.
1:02:08
It sounds like there's a range of issues that you're referencing really seriously.
1:02:13
We do see that as a slightly different issue that's not necessarily addressed.
1:02:19
We have not seen instances where changing our workers pay is what addresses bullying, intimidation, and wage theft.
1:02:26
We believe that the most important way to combat those are with enforcement mechanisms.
1:02:31
So whenever those are happening, they need to be addressed.
1:02:34
I also hear you asking the question about the leverage over which contractors are involved.
1:02:40
I'm actually also not sure that that's what's addressed by the legislation.
1:02:44
And in fact, what we've seen is that in some of the more complicated wage schemes, which is the narrowing of the market.
1:02:51
So even fewer contractors that are bidding, etcetera.
