"A story of hope, and a lopsided deal; A national ministry for addicts has a record of success, but its work program leaves some vulnerable men feeling misused" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff, August 26, 2012
An improbable journey arranged by his church, a Christian drug rehabilitation ministry called Victory Outreach, from a Philadelphia ghetto to the top floors of Boston’s Marriott Copley Plaza, the job offered Jesse Carter hope of a steady wage and a fresh start.
But inside the Marriott his optimism quickly faded, displaced by unshakable fatigue and pain from the daily demands of the work. He said he was moving furniture 12 hours a day, six days a week — part of a crew from Victory Outreach working around the clock last winter to remodel the hotel’s 1,100 guest rooms.
At night, Carter and 11 other laborers packed into a pair of two-bedroom apartments in Chelsea provided by the contractors. His pay for nearly three months of labor worked out to about $4 an hour, half the required minimum wage in Massachusetts.
And I thought I was receiving slave wages for literally swabbing s***.
“For what we got paid,” Carter said, “that job was crazy.”
In searching for a foothold out of poverty, the 50 year old got swept into a little-known corner of America’s underground economy. His job at the Marriott was not an isolated arrangement, but one of many hotel projects that have employed, on short wages, impoverished men affiliated with Victory Outreach, an international evangelical church that operates recovery homes for addicts and former gang members in some of America’s poorest neighborhoods.
Using church labor has allowed a southern California furniture installer to cut costs on the renovation of hotels from Anaheim, Calif., to Boston, where his company has won jobs moving furniture at properties operated under brands such as Embassy Suites, Marriott, and Disney.
The firm, Installations Plus, pays Victory Outreach a fraction of its revenue for each hotel job for supplying the labor, and then appears to keep much of the remainder. The company’s owner, George A. Herrera, defended his use of the church-supplied labor. He said he pays Victory Outreach a lump sum — typically tens of thousands of dollars — and suggested it is the church’s responsibility to ensure the men are adequately paid.
“I don’t know what the church pays the guys or what it promises them,” said Herrera, who runs his national business with no commercial office space or clerical staff, relying on a cellphone to handle day-to-day operations.
Victory Outreach administrators said the church uses its partnership with Herrera and other business owners to raise money for its ministry, which includes more than 700 churches and recovery homes around the globe. The church was founded in 1967 by pastor Sonny Arguinzoni, a former heroin addict and petty criminal who professed a vision to reach out to disenfranchised people with nowhere else to turn....
And I'm going to turn the page on this post. Call it finding God if you will.
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Related: Workers will get $31k in back pay
State aims to toughen labor wage, tax laws
Marriott Copley Violates Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law With Victory Outreach
Isn't that where Mitt Romney stays when he's on the campaign trail?
"Marriott Copley Place project flouted pay law; Violations found rife at 15 companies; laborers got half of minimum wage" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff, September 04, 2012
An $18 million renovation of the Boston Marriott Copley Place that paid illegally low wages to men from a Philadelphia church was rife with violations of tax and labor laws, according to a state investigation that found improper activity by 15 construction companies.
Investigators for a state task force on the underground economy found the hotel’s contractors failed to report $1.2 million in wages, deprived the state of nearly $86,000 in taxes, and illegally misclassified 63 employees to avoid spending money on required taxes, insurance, and other benefits.
Last month, the Globe reported that one contractor got its workers from a Philadelphia drug rehabilitation ministry, Victory Outreach. They were paid just $4 an hour — half the state’s minimum wage — to move furniture in and out of hotel’s rooms. The men said they worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, and at night stayed in a pair of Chelsea apartments provided by the contractors.
Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., which owns the Marriott and funded the renovation, has said it was unaware of any potential labor violations until January, when State Police arrived at the hotel and began interviewing the Victory Outreach workers.
But the findings by labor investigators show the violations extended far beyond those involving the church’s workers and involved an array of construction companies that employed a shadow workforce at the Back Bay hotel for months....
Even if the state finds violations by multiple subcontractors it cannot identify them because state law protects the privacy of companies accused of tax violations. That means none of the 15 companies it found to be acting illegally at the Marriott will be known to the public.
Meanwhile, the volume of violations being discovered at Massachusetts work sites continues to increase.
In 2011, the state task force on the underground economy collected nearly $11 million in fines, back taxes, and unpaid wages from companies found in violation of labor laws....
The violations were found in a range of industries, including food service, information technology, and construction....
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Also see: Janitors lose jobs after nonunion firm hired
