FEDS EYE PROJECTS IN BROOKLYN, BRONX FOR LABOR ABUSES
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN (NYDN)
Illegal labor is the foundation of the city’s affordable housing industry, construction workers and union leaders claim.
Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2015. But Hizzoner’s push is coming under scrutiny, with a top contractor headed to trial for wage infractions at an East Harlem project and a housing agency bigwig arrested Oct. 6 for corruption.
Now the U.S. Labor Department and the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development are probing underpayment and kickbacks at affordable housing projects in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the Daily News has learned. At the Bronx site - 780 Prospect Ave. - workers are due $575,000.
