When the Connecticut state Department of Labor ordered three contractors to stop working on a shopping center project because they had violated rules, another labor issue arose as well: union workers protesting that what they say should have been their jobs are going to outsiders.

According to Connecticut Labor Commissioner Sharon Palmer, the employers who were issued the stop work orders did not provide their workers with “the proper workplace protections that are the right of every working person.” But the carpenters union wasn’t objecting to illegal practices that left workers without required insurance coverage, it was unhappy that one of the suspended contractors, Georgia-based G&F Group LLC, had brought in workers from outside Connecticut rather than hiring locally.

“Connecticut contractors, unionized or not, cannot compete for work when something like this happens,” an organizer said.

The other two contractors told to stop work were Alvin Quality Masonry and Industrial Technical Services. They were found by state labor department inspectors not to have workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance coverage for their employees.

Palmer said the employers were “taking unfair advantage of their employees and also cheating the state by not paying the proper taxes or providing unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation. This is an unacceptable way to do business in Connecticut because our workers are not protected should they get hurt on the job or become unemployed. …”

Companies on the receiving end of a stop-work order in Connecticut may not resume work until they prove that all deficiencies have been corrected. They are fined $300 for each day they operate in violation.

But what concerns the union isn’t the money draining from employers’ pockets, but from their own.

Read the whole story on the New Haven Register.