Part Three: How The Current System Fails Workers, The Industry And Masssachusetts Taxpayers And How We Can Restore Fairness And Integrity In Residential Construction

It is very clear that current state laws, regulatory structures and the level of public resources allocated to monitoring and enforcement have been unable to curb illegal misclassification of workers, cash payments, wage theft and tax fraud and a variety of illegal and unethical activities in residential construction. The egregious conditions we have documented on job-sites across the Commonwealth and the hyper-exploitation of undocumented workers have no place in Massachusetts. The Commonwealth has a responsibility to ensure that its laws are followed in the construction industry and that workers are not routinely asked to perform unsafe work, cheated out of their wages, or forgo access to the economic benefits enjoyed by workers classified as employees.

We have identified four areas where changes need to be made: