Mason Tenders speaker on labor broker exploitation in construction

So whoever's ready can start.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hello, Chair.

Construction has historically provided a pathway into the middle class for New Yorkers without a four-year college degree.

Equality construction career can allow someone to support a family, access health care, safer retirement, and build long-term financial security.

But that opportunity is lost when developers use low-wage labor brokers to recruit vulnerable workers and pay them near minimum wage without meaningful benefits, job security, or a pathway to advancement.

The business model of a labor broker is based on charging the third-party clients an hourly markup on the rate of pay for each worker provided.

The workers are paid substandard wages, while the labor broker contractor gets paid $30 to $50 per hour for each worker.

They rely on the system of mass incarceration and poverty to suppress wages and create a pipeline of temporary laborers who do the most dangerous work on construction sites.

Workers build affordable housing while struggling to afford housing themselves.

Public investment generates development, but not the economic mobility.

Our communities were promised.

This is a policy choice, and the city can make a difference.

As the city implements block by block, workers must be at the forefront.

We are asking the city to take a no labor broker pledge, expand the $40 standard of CJA that passed this past December, and ensure that developers receiving public support provide safe conditions, meaningful benefits,

transparent employment practices, and real pathways into construction careers.

Thank you.