dlt – RI Future

September 2, 2015August 9, 2016

Labor reactions to Raimondo’s Workplace Fraud Unit settlement with Cardoso Construction

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Labor leaders and activists reacted positively to Governor Gina Raimondo‘s announcement yesterday that a “new Workplace Fraud Unit within the Department of Labor and Training‘s (DLT) Workplace Regulation and Safety division recently reached a settlement with a company that admitted to violating worker protection laws. Cardoso Construction LLC agreed to pay more than $730,000 in back wages, interest and penalties. This is the first significant action of this new unit.”

According to the press release, “DLT officials found the violation on a drywall job at the University of Rhode Island. After investigating, they determined that the company should have characterized the workers as ’employees,’ but they were mischaracterized as ‘independent contractors.'”

Cardoso Construction will, “pay a total of $351,812 in back wages to the workers, pay DLT an identical penalty of $351,812, and pay a fine of $27,000 – $1,000 per worker – for violating the state misclassification law.”

In a statement, the RI AFL-CIO wrote, “Big News and a very important step forward with a clear and strong message from Governor Gina Raimondo and DLT Director Scott Jensen that employers perpetuating fraud and deception will not be tolerated in the State of Rhode Island any longer.”

Jesse Strecker, executive director of RI Jobs With Justice, told me, “Seems to be a great step forward as far as I can tell. The DLT has definitely suffered from underfunding in the past, and it’s great to see some more resources being directed to wage and hour violations and miss-classification, all of which are hugely pervasive problems.”

Wage theft allegations have been made against several local restaurants in Rhode Island. Fuerza Laboral has protested outside Gourmet Heaven several times over the last year and protested outside the home of Cafe Atlantic owner Juan Noboa.

In the Governor’s press release, the seriousness of misclassification was outlined:

When employers misclassify employees as independent contractors, they harm workers, hurt other companies that play by the rules, and cheat taxpayers. By misclassifying workers, companies:

• Deny employees access to critical benefits such as Unemployment Insurance (UI), workers’ compensation insurance, overtime pay, and family and medical leave;

• Hurt law-abiding employers who play by the rules but are unfairly under-bid for work; and

• Cheat taxpayers by lowering tax revenues and robbing UI and workers’ compensation funds of much-needed dollars.

To combat this, the Governor has outlined a “four-point action plan”:

1. Using existing funding to create a new Workplace Fraud Unit to focus DLT’s efforts on dishonest companies

2. Coordinating state agency efforts and pooling resources to conduct investigations and bring enforcement actions with maximum impact

3. Enforcing worker protection laws to the fullest extent and spotlighting businesses that cheat

4. Fostering compliance with the law through employer outreach and education

From the Governor’s press release:

“It’s only fair to repay the employees who were underpaid for months on the job, and this agreement will achieve that,” said Raimondo. “Everyone must compete by the same rules on public projects in Rhode Island, and this settlement is sending the clear message that we will be cracking down on abuse.”

“Following the same rules as everyone else is not a barrier to success,” said DLT Director Scott Jensen. “We will continue to protect our community’s investment in our workforce, and we remain committed to helping Rhode Island companies grow their businesses and play by the rules. I also applaud the work of the Joint Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification, who along with the new Workplace Fraud unit, moved this case forward.”

The DLT Director leads this Task Force, which was established in 2014, and consists of DLT, the Office of the Attorney General, Division of Taxation, Department of Business Regulation, Department of Public Safety and Workers’ Compensation Court.

August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Progress Report: ‘Marketplace’ Looks at DLT Cutbacks; WPA Plaques Disappear; Bad News for Citizens Bank; Olympics

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Marketplace, the public radio program that makes economics fun and easy to follow, reached out to RI Future yesterday. They are doing a piece – for tonight’s show, I believe – on layoffs at local unemployment offices and wanted to talk with our contributor, Jonathan Jacobs, who has been filing stories for us on losing his job at DLT. Marketplace is on RIPR tonight at 6:30.

Shermantown Rd farm — A farm on Shermantown Road in North Kingstown. (Photo by Bob Plain)

Staff cuts at the state unemployment office may not matter to most of us, but to many of Rhode Island’s most unlucky residents (the ones who were laid off during the down economy) efficient unemployment insurance payments can make the difference between being foreclosed or not. Here are the stories Jonathan Jacobs has filed for RI Future on the situation.

Also, just in case you missed it, Aaron Regunberg has also been covering the unemployment crisis in Rhode Island. Every week he profiles a local person who is out of work (here’s a list of all his stories on the crisis). The idea is to show that unemployment is more than just a a quarterly percentage sent out by the state to compare our woes with Michigan and Nevada. There are real Rhode Islanders whose lives are being severely scarred by this crisis.

And speaking of unemployment, the Projo reports that WPA plaques are disappearing from sites where the government put people to work building up the commons and our shared infrastructure that we still use to get to the office and other places today … maybe trickle-down Republicans are taking them hoping we won’t remember what got the country out of the last big economic downturn?

Here’s hoping employees of Citizens Bank don’t have to join them on the unemployment line as a result of RBS’ issues. Either way, it’s high time we start talking about relocalizing banks.

All this talk about the economy has taken the focus away from climate change – something humanity can little afford to do, GoLocal’s Rob Horowitz reminds us this morning.

Awesome sentence about the Navy testing unmanned military drones in Narragansett Bay: “The bay known as a playground for the rich is the testing ground for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, where the Navy is working toward its goal of achieving a squadron of self-driven, undersea vehicles.”

Speaking of completely unnecessary military endeavors … today in 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, “giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia.”

I love the irony in Fox News seeming to care more that US Olympic uniforms look American than they do that they actually be American.

July 14, 2012July 14, 2012

Many Unemployed, Fewer DLT Equals Big Problems

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chafee_bryant — Governor Chafee (Photo by Bob Plain)

So Governor Chafee has justified the reduction in key staff of the Unemployment Insurance and Workforce Development sectors of the Department of Labor & Training by saying that our economy is improving sufficiently enough to justify the layoffs.

In a June 7th interview with WPRO, the Governor stated:

“Well, the DLT is the opposite of the economy. When the economy is bad they are hiring to deal with the unemployment insurance issues and as the economy stabilized, unfortunately, it goes the other way. They start to layoff those employees that they had to hire during the glut of unemployment insurance requests.”

Realistically speaking, this means a reduction in service center employees from around 90 to around 35. So Rhode Islands’s economy, by gubernatorial logic, has improved over 65%. When did that happen? Where were we? Didn’t 38 Studios just take a flaming nose dive into bankruptcy, crashing into Narragansett Bay in spectacular fashion? Didn’t Blue Cross just let over 40 employees go? Is there a secret, hidden construction boom going on? Is manufacturing on the rise? Does Mr. Chaffee realize that having the second highest levels of unemployment in the country is not worthy of a silver medal? Or is he simply not satisfied until Rhode Island wins first place at something?

Or is it something else?

Changes in Rhode Island laws are a matter of public record, but not often a matter of public knowledge. As of July 1st 2012, Rhode Island Labor Law 28-44-6 has undergone a fairly drastic change that will significantly reduce the means by which unemployment insurance weekly benefit rates are calculated. Without going into the formulaic details of the change, it is enough to say that it will reduce the weekly benefit rate in almost all cases. Come this time next year, the weekly benefit rate reduces again and as of July 1st, 2014, it reduces once more. In a state where over ten percent of claims include out of state wages (primarily due to the small geographic size of RI and it’s proximity to CT and MA), this reduces the incentive for claimants to choose Rhode Island as the state where they would receive a benefit rate most comparable to the income they were receiving prior to layoff.

Maybe. But not necessarily. Previously, Rhode Island was often the obvious choice when given the option to request the combination of out of state and Rhode Island taxed wages because of the generous means by which our weekly benefit rate was calculated. Now it will be comparable in many cases. But not significantly reduced. The more likely incentive will be for businesses who will be able to lay workers off with less of a payroll tax rating percentage increase. Good for “job creators” when they choose to be “job eliminators.”

Another change in the Labor Laws is the means by which a disqualification can be overcome. Previously, if a claimant was determined to be separated from an employer for disqualifying reasons – getting fired for wilfull misconduct or quitting without good cause – one needed only to return to work after the date of disqualifying separation for eight weeks and earn twenty times Rhode Island’s minimum wage for each of those weeks (8X$148) to overcome the prior disqualification and be allowed to collect on subsequent separation from employment. Now one must return to work for at least eight weeks and earn at least his or her weekly benefit rate for the disqualification to be overcome. This will prevent many from being able to collect after a single disqualification, even after redeeming themselves by returning to work and being separated again through no fault of their own.

Rhode Island has the right to know about changes that will affect the safety net of over eleven percent of it’s people. These same citizens also have the right to know that, while these changes – the reduction of key workforce at the DLT, the reduction of benefits, the increase in difficulty of overcoming disqualification of receipt of said benefits – may benefit the few (the job creators who create no jobs), they disenfranchise the many.

These decisions are not math, they are politics and, in spite of the deliberate confusion on the part of many politicians, there is a difference. The workload at the DLT has not reduced. The wait times for incoming calls to the call center have routineley exceeded one hundred minutes over the past few weeks. The back office functions and specialized are falling far behind and work is piling up. After the two thirds reduction in front-line employees and the eliminations of entire sub-sections of specialization, things will not get more efficient. I will reiterate, this is math. Politics can not change math no matter how hard it tries.

Eleven percent unemployment. Insufficient training for a struggling workforce. Second highest unemployment rate in the country. 65% reduction in front line workforce on the front lines at the Department of Labor & Training. That is the math problem. Solve for X using politics.

July 1, 2012July 2, 2012

Drowning DLT to Replace People with Robots

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As we all are by now aware, Rhode Island’s unemployed and under-employed population are preparing themselves to receive fewer and less effective services from the State of Rhode Island. The unprecedented reduction in workforce does not correspond with the extremely high workload created by the second highest levels of unemployment in the nation, and stagnant level of jobless citizens seeking help.

But wait! Never fear because technology is here!

Currently a system has been implemented called “The Call Back Manager.” This system gives those who require assistance from a call center representative the option to either wait on hold for the next available representative or to wait for a call back by the next available representative. This means that less call center representatives are needed. Right?

But who calls the people back?

I suppose that minor detail was overlooked when calculating the number of staff to cut. The automated system still connects a customer with a human representative, trained to assist them in any number of widely varying claims issues and providing information. Okay, so that’s just one minor miscalculation. There is other technology being encouraged by the wise elders administrating the efficiency-enhancing devices being implemented to ease the transition from human to robot. In fact, recent press has encouraged claimants to file their claims for unemployment insurance via the internet. This makes sense. The claim can smoothly pass through the system without a single set of human eyes ever having to scan the claim. Right?

But how about the hundreds of variables that stimulate the need for contact between claimant and specialist to clarify details left out or mistakenly interpreted? Or how about the fact that wages from other states play an enormous legal factor in accurately determining benefit calculations or entitlement in this state? Furthermore, when details like this are overlooked (as they quite often are by the already implemented “internet clean claim system”) this leads to many dollars lost in non-recoverable overpayments.

Well of course there are a few bugs to be worked out and that’s why we hired the experts from private industry to come and evaluate the specific needs of our department and tailor their products to best serve Rhode Island’s jobless needs. These corporations have Rhode Islander’s best interests at heart and the prices paid for their services are well worth the taxpayers dollars.

We have the front desk, where a person can walk in and speak with a representative who is explicitly instructed to have the customer complete a call-back form to be dispersed among the representatives and contact will be made within five business days to aid the individual. In fact, they can do this from an automated, touch-screen kiosk and never have to speak with a live person at all. Despite the fact that this is technically listed as the Unemployment Service Center, it is actually a call center and we do not provide services directly in-person.

But who calls them back? Or, for that matter, the people who request information about payment via the UIHelp email system?

Well questions like this are simply wrinkles guaranteed to be ironed out after the majority of the representatives are laid off. The fact remains, when a person loses his or her job, he or she wants a human being to explain the rights of legal entitlement. People want to be helped by other people. Automation is excellent at facilitating what human resources can do. But we have all had the frustrating experience of having a complication with an organization, the solution to which is not offered as a numbered choice by the robot voice on the end of the line. When these complications are on the scale of losing one’s home and feeding one’s family, one wants to talk to another human being; a human being trained to explain in detail the when, where and how of the financial lifeline when it is needed most.

You will hear me repeat this many times before my writing days are over: Rhode Island is a reactive state. Not a proactive state. A little foresight goes a long way. Keep the staffing levels as they are and those drowning may stay afloat. Continue on the path of decimating a vital state agency and watch the water levels rise. The choice is up to the legislators and, lest we forget, the legislators answer to the citizens.

But only if the citizens speak up.