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PAGE 2
IRCC QUARTERLY UPDATE- AUGUST—SEPTEMBER 2009
VOLUME 21, NUMBER 3
Don’t Let Yourself Be Bullied By Improper Payroll
and Financial Disclosure Demands By Unions
Make Sure Your Awarding Body, or General, Knows the Law On Confidentiality
And Rebuff Attempts by Labor Organizors to Compromise Privacy of Your Workers
Local Union business agents are masters of
intimidation and coercion; to them, it’s a proud tradi-
tion. Their success in this arena is often dependent on
an employer’s lack of knowledge of the law.
Recently, an IRCC contractor contacted the
association’s administrative staff in alarm over a long
laundry list of financial information and other paper-
work from an awarding body, which went way beyond
anything they had been requested to produce before
—- pay stubs, cancelled checks to vendors on the
jobs, inspection forms, a list of vendors deliv-
ering to the job site, etc.
The awarding body in this instance
was a school district, which was
merely forwarding the request to the
contractor. It had originally been sent
by a union business agent, who had
hounded the contract manager at the
school district with a variety of unsub-
staniated complaints about the em-
ployer who, in fact, was only guilty of
one thing –being non-union.
The general contractor, who
was subbing the job was unfamiliar
with privacy issues and the release of
information, and was insistant that the
employer produce the information for the union, or
face a hold up of the progress payment on the work.
Many compliance investigators, too, defer to
unions and ex-officio governmental agents, assuming
that they are entitled to information that others in the
general public are not.
This is of course, not true, and merit shop
contractors who get asked to produce such documen-
tation should immediately get a letter issued to the
general and the awarding body, that pursuant to Cali-
fornia Labor Code Section 1776 which deals with an
employer’s obligation to keep and provide certified
payrolls for awarding bodies, and the privacy of work-
ers information.
The state’s internal Prevailing Wage Enforce-
ment manual workbook (2009 edition), put’s it this
way:
“CPR Privacy Concerns. Labor Code § 1776
(e): mandates special handling of CPRs obtained by
DLSE and two other public entities -- awarding bodies
and the Division of Apprenticeship Standards ("DAS")
—
who are also statutorily authorized to request CPRs
from public works contractors. Before making CPRs
available for inspection as copies, and furnished upon
request to the public or any other public agency pursu-
ant to Labor Code § 1776(b)(3), CPRs obtained by
DLSE staff must be "marked or obliterated to avoid
disclosure" of workers' names, addresses and social
security numbers. That same obligation is set forth
at 8 CCR § 16403.”
And that’s pretty definitive. But because many
of these agencies and generals have never read the
labor code, they end up in many
cases releasing and requiring
information they should be filter-
ing as prescribed in the
Labor Code.
To prevent such
lapses, make sure you
have a stamp made up to
imprint on each page of
certified payrolls you re-
lease to a general, or an
awarding body.
The Department of Homeland Security an-
nounced in July that it will rescind the “no match
rule” which would have required all employers to
use the E-verify system to verify citizenship of cur-
rent workers and potential employees.
Following the announcement, Senator
David Vitter (R-La) offered an amendement to the
Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that would
bar DHS from using funds to rescind the no-match
rule in fiscal year 2010. The amendment awaits
a House/Senate conference committee vote.
CONFIDENTIALITY ALERT
For Awarding Body Or General
Pursuant to California Code of Regulations,
Title13, Article 8, Section 16403.
This payroll document contains
privileged and confidential information.
Do not distribute without deleting names,
addresses and SSN information.
.
STAMP EXAMPLE
FOR CERTIFIED PAYROLL
“No Match Rule” On Workers
Social Security Numbers
Rescinded In Softening
On Imigration Law