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Boston Company Owner Violated The State Prevailing Wage Laws

20 Feb, 2009 WorkersCompensation.com

                               
Boston, MA (CompNewsNetwork) - Yesterday, George V. Wattendorf, 53, of Swampscott, and his East Boston general contracting business, G.V.W., Inc. (G.V.W.), pled guilty in Suffolk Superior Court for failing to pay the prevailing wage, failing to pay overtime, and failing to submit true and accurate certified payroll records on various public works projects in the Commonwealth. After the guilty pleas were entered, Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan ordered both Wattendorf and G.V.W. to pay over $151,000 in restitution to six former employees and a $30,000 fine to the Commonwealth.  Judge Quinlan also sentenced Wattendorf to unsupervised probation for a period of one year. Both Wattendorf and his company were also debarred from contracting or working on public works projects for one year. 

In February 2007, the Attorney General's Office began an investigation after receiving a complaint from a former employee of G.V.W., which alleged the company had failed to pay the proper rate for work performed on the Haverhill High School public work project.  Investigators reviewed the company's payroll records and discovered that Wattendorf and G.V.W. failed to pay the prevailing wage, failed to pay employees overtime, and also failed to submit true and accurate certified payroll records at multiple public projects throughout the Commonwealth.  The projects included: the Haverhill High School project, the Batchelder Elementary School project in Reading, the Lunenburg Primary School project, the Lynn Police Headquarters project, the Amesbury High School project, and the Johnson and Kennedy School Fire Alarms Project in Natick. 

A Suffolk Grand Jury indicted Wattendorf and his company on February 14, 2008.  Wattendorf was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on March 4, 2008, where he pled not guilty and was released on personal recognizance.  The corporation was arraigned on May 21, 2008, in Suffolk Superior Court and entered a plea of not guilty.  Yesterday, both Wattendorf and his company pled guilty in Suffolk Superior Court and were sentenced.

The Prevailing Wage and Records Keeping Laws apply to all construction work performed on public works projects in Massachusetts.  The Prevailing Wage Laws allow all contractors bidding on public works projects to enjoy a "level playing field" by standardizing the rate of pay the workers will earn.  The Records Keeping Laws allow state agencies to monitor the spending of taxpayer monies on public construction projects.

The matter was handled by Assistant Attorney General Joanne Goldstein, Chief of Attorney General Martha Coakley's Fair Labor Division, and Assistant Attorney General Miranda Jones, Deputy Chief of Investigations Greg Reutlinger, and Senior Prevailing Wage Investigator James Kelley, also Attorney General Coakley's Fair Labor Division.

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