The New York Times is reporting that a NYC contractor, who has done millions of dollars worth of work for various New York City public organizations and authorities over the past 20 years, was recently indicted and charged for allegedly widespread wage-theft on its jobs.

“The indictment… accuses M. A. Angeliades of failing to pay prevailing wages and benefits to employees who were working on rehabilitating 11 subway stations from January 2005 through December 2007, officials said.

Although the charges were limited to the company’s work on the 11 stations, covered by four contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, who announced the indictments, suggested widespread crime. “I think it’s clear they stole a lot more,” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference to announce the charges….

the thrust of the charges is that Mr. Angeliades and the others went to great lengths to avoid paying union wages and benefits for overtime and weekend work to the company’s employees, instead paying them $20 an hour, and keeping the additional $40 to $55 an hour that the company was required to pay into union benefit funds, prosecutors said.

By failing to pay prevailing wages and benefits, as the law requires on public contracts, companies reap significant savings that allow them to underbid their competition and make substantially larger profits.

Over the past decade, the company has done $432 million worth of work for the M.T.A., $236 million for the School Construction Authority and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of work for the city and other public agencies.

After the company came under scrutiny, the city and several other agencies warned their contracting officers away from M. A. Angeliades, but it is still doing millions of dollars’ worth of work for the transportation authority, the School Construction Authority and the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation.”

To read the entire article go to the New York Times Website.