Dear Compliance Man,<\/p>\n
My husband and many of his coworkers are not getting paid the prevailing wage as required on\u00a0state projects. The owner of the company also fraudulently fills out certified payrolls, which as you\u00a0know are required on these projects. My husband has been collecting unemployment for months,\u00a0as are many others at the company, but still getting paid under the table by the owner. Many\u00a0of my husbands \u201cpaychecks\u201d bounce for his under the table work.<\/p>\n
This has been going on for\u00a0years, and while we realize that we weren\u2019t doing the right thing by working and accepting these\u00a0checks while collecting unemployment it has now gotten to the point where it needs to be exposed.We just want\u00a0to survive as a family.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 100% certain that when you interview the workers, all these issues will\u00a0be found to be accurate. I hesitate to sign this letter because of the owner\u2019s volatile temper and\u00a0repercussions that may happen should I become involved.<\/p>\n
–Had It<\/p>\n
Dear Had It,<\/p>\n
First of all, thanks so much for being brave and honest enough to come forward. This obviously wasn\u2019t an easy letter for you to write.<\/p>\n
Now for the good news. The state of Massachusetts has begun to crackdown on employers<\/a>, like your husband\u2019s, who skirt the law through various \u201coff the books\u201d schemes. A new anonymous tip-line (1-877-627-7233) has been set up to help workers report fraud at their workplaces, and a tough new state law will entitle workers who\u2019ve been underpaid or denied overtime to triple damages paid by their employers. You\u2019ve done your part by alerting authorities to what sounds like a serious case of workplace fraud.<\/p>\n For more commonly asked Compliance Man questions, visit the\u00a0Compliance Man archives<\/a>. Send your question to\u00a0info@ffcm.org<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Compliance Man, My husband and many of his coworkers are not getting paid the prevailing wage as required on\u00a0state projects. The owner of the company also fraudulently fills out certified payrolls, which as you\u00a0know are required on these projects. My husband has been collecting unemployment for months,\u00a0as are many others at the company, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[43,46,50,51,38,45,30],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-compliance-man","tag-accounting","tag-fraud","tag-paycheck","tag-payroll","tag-prevailing-wage","tag-unemployment","tag-wages","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1460,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ffcm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}