[T]hree Burlington companies, ADA Traffic Control, Westaff, and S.D. Ireland, have been cited for underpaying employees in violation of the city’s livable wage ordinance, the city attorney’s office said in a recent report.
The livable wage ordinance has been on the books in Burlington for 17 years but until last year enforcement has been lax.
“For more than five years, we have worked to fix the (livable wage enforcement) system, and this fiscal year we took strong enforcement actions to ensure that covered workers are paid the wages they deserve,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a statement last week.
The Burlington City Council approved the livable wage ordinance in 2001, setting a minimum hourly wage to be paid by the city and by any company with a $15,000 or higher annual contract with the city.
The wage has been set at $14.24 per hour for fiscal year 2018, for employers who offer health insurance as an employee benefit, and at $15.83 for those employers who do not offer health benefits.
In 2013, Weinberger — newly elected as Burlington mayor — had asked the city’s attorney Eileen Blackwood to investigate the effectiveness of the ordinance. Blackwood’s report found the ordinance was being largely ignored, with only 14 percent of city contractors in compliance.
Responding to the city attorney’s findings, the city made some changes to the law, designating the Vermont Workers’ Center as the “third party accountability monitor” responsible for conducting workplace training, and vetting employee complaints. The city attorney’s office had responsibility for investigating the complaints, and enforcing the law, including fining non-compliant employers.
Burlington city councilor Max Tracy said in an interview Friday that “establishing a compliance monitoring system was crucial” to ensuring contractors would follow the ordinance.
Avery Book, from the Vermont Workers’ Center, did not respond to an initial phone message and e-mail request for comment on Friday.
ADA Traffic Control’s citation for underpaying workers is its second in two years, according to the city attorney’s report. Last year, the company was ordered to pay 15 flaggers a total of $1,300 in back-pay. The company failed another compliance check this year, prompting the city to issue five tickets, one for each underpaid worker, and to bar the company from working on city contracts for nine months.
In response to the company’s announcement that it would pay all Vermont employees $16 per hour, the city lowered its suspension to eight months.
The Vermont Workers’ Center flagged concerns about potential violations by Westaff, a temporary hiring agency. The city attorney’s office examined payroll records and found that Westaff had paid two employees less than the required $15.83 per hour minimum. The company was ordered to paythe employees a total of $2,086.
The city also checked payroll records of S.D. Ireland and found that 11 of the contractor’s employees had been underpaid a total of $2,155. S.D. Ireland self-reported that it had failed to adequately compensate 42 employees for paid time off. Because the company reimbursed the affected employees, the city did not issue a citation, the city attorney’s report said, but should S.D. Ireland be found in violation again this year, the city will act.
For companies like S.D. Ireland, who receive substantial city contracts, the threat of being barred from future municipal work is “a big deal,” Tracy said.
“I’m glad to see (the city) taking it a step further by establishing random compliance checks,” he said.
At Town Meeting in March, Burlington residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of encouraging the Vermont Legislature to pass a $15 minimum wage bill. Katie Vane, Weinberger’s communications coordinator, said the mayor “supports the legislature’s efforts to move Vermont towards a $15 minimum wage,” but did not say whether the mayor would support a higher city-wide minimum wage.
