COLCHESTER, Vt. (WCAX) – A Colchester construction company has pledged to provide new protections for laborers after it was singled out for dubious housing practices last year that garnered a slew of negative media attention.
Migrant laborers on Tuesday offered a round of applause for Vermont Construction Company. It comes after the company was singled out last year for housing laborers, many of them Latino migrants, in a storage space with exposed electrical wiring, loose trash, and other hazards.
Worker Jose Ignacio says in their industry there are often cases of wage theft and that means migrant workers finish their week without a paycheck. That comes on top of the challenges of finding affordable housing and being rejected for worker’s compensation after injuries.
However, under a new agreement with a national advocacy group, Vermont Construction Company and all of its subcontractors will enter a program where a third-party auditor reviews pay, safety, and housing. Workers will be educated on their rights and provided a phone support line.
“In order to get there, we’ve got a couple of months of work, really to finalize the code and sign into a formal agreement that launches the operation of the program,” said Doug Mork with the Minneapolis-based Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council.
Migrant Justice, which also organized the Milk with Dignity campaign several years ago, says they hope to expand the agreement of cooperation with more construction companies in the region.
