A local fire alarm system contractor has been accused of cheating its workers out of wages and fined by the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, but the company claims the state is to blame.
The agency announced Wednesday that Honolulu-based Ohana Control Systems Inc. owes workers $58,449 in back wages and has been assessed $59,449 in penalties related to fire alarm system work at Sanford B. Dole Middle School in Kalihi.
DLIR also seeks to have Ohana Control suspended from further public works projects for three years because it allegedly falsified records by claiming that it made deposits to certain employee 401(k) retirement accounts when such deposits weren’t made.
Other violations alleged by DLIR against Ohana Control include that the company didn’t pay overtime and had too many apprentices in relation to journey-workers.
Amir Borochov, Ohana Control’s president, disputed the allegations and said the state Department of Education is the cause of the problem.
“We dispute everything they say,” he said of DLIR. “We are 100 percent disputing it.”
Borochov said DOE hasn’t paid his company around $500,000 for work done on fire alarm system projects at seven schools, including work at Dole Middle finished in 2012.
“They are corrupt,” he said of DOE construction management officials. “They are the cause of this whole thing.”
DLIR said Ohana Control has a right to appeal. Borochov said an appeal should be filed by the end of this week. He added that he has filed one lawsuit against DOE and that other contractors are having similar problems with the public school agency.
DOE could not be reached late Wednesday for comment.
DLIR claims that Ohana Control incurred one other wage law violation within the past two years. Borochov said that violation had to do with the same case and that it was rescinded.
Having three wage law violations within three years is grounds for suspending a contractor from state public works projects for three years. Suspension also can occur if a contractor falsifies records.
DLIR said companies need to abide by wage laws to be fair to competitors and taxpayers.
“Contractors choose to seek taxpayer-funded work,” DLIR Director Leonard Hoshijo said in a statement. “They should be prepared to compete fairly, paying workers according to the law and the very contracts they sign. If workers are shorted, bidding competition is made unfair, while our own taxes are used to undermine Hawaii’s standard of living.”
