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OAKLAND – A federal jury convicted Job Torres Hernandez of charges that he obtained forced labor from victims and harbored illegal aliens for commercial advantage or private financial gain, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent-in-Charge Ryan L. Spradlin.  The conviction follows a ten day trial before the Honorable Jeffrey S. White, U.S. District Judge.

The evidence at trial demonstrated that since at least May 2015, Torres, 38, of Hayward, Calif., owned construction companies in Northern California at which he employed workers to whom he paid little to …

On April 17, 2019 Masonry Contractors of New Jersey and the South Jersey Mechanical Contractors Association held a joint member    meeting.  John Connors of SJMCA spoke briefly and introduced the evening’s guest speakers on the topic of Misclassification and the Underground Construction Economy, Carol Ciesielski of Masonry Contractors of NJ and Kevin Triplett of the NJ Department of Labor & Workforce Development.   Over 50 Members from the two Associations joined the discussion and were given the opportunity to ask questions.   Misclassification and the Underground Construction Economy are ongoing problems in the state of New Jersey.   Other states have been fighting …

Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced that an Ocean County construction contractor pleaded guilty today to purposely not paying prevailing wages on a government contract valued over $75,000. As part of his criminal activity, the contractor falsified payroll records for the public contract to cover up the fact that he paid most of his employees only a fraction of the wages required under the Prevailing Wage Act, while not paying others at all. It is believed that many of the defendant’s employees were undocumented immigrants and he took advantage of their status.

Albert Chwedczuk, 45, of Toms River, N.J., pleaded …