This article is 2 weeks old and I intended to post it then but the NY Daily News has developed a masking practice (such as changing titles of articles in print and on-line) that makes it very hard to find certain articles on-line. I actually stumbled on this while searching for something else.


AG probing claim that top hotel developers paid laborers on sliding scale based on skin color

BY Brian Kates
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, October 30th 2009, 4:00 AM

The city's top two hotel developers are under investigation in an expanding probe of a contractor accused of paying construction workers based on their race, the Daily News has learned.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is looking into Sam Chang and John Lam - who've created thousands of hotel rooms across Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn - sources familiar with the matter said.

Cuomo has targeted a builder who reputedly pays white workers more than blacks - and blacks more than Latinos, sources say.

"The investigation is ongoing and investigators will be looking at other individuals and organizations that may have been involved, including Chang and Lam," one source said.

Lam could not be reached; Chang did not return calls.

The rival developers are key players in the city's burgeoning lodging boom, which has seen nearly 300 new hotels go into development since 2004.

Hotels made possible in part by the skewed wage scale and other violations are said to include the biggest names in the industry: Wyndham, Hilton, Doubletree, Fairfield Inn and Hampton Inn.

Chang and Lam came under Cuomo's microscope for their repeated use of contractor Michael Mahoney, who the attorney general sued this month for paying white carpenters $25 an hour, blacks $18 an hour and Latinos and Brazilians $15 an hour.

Union carpenters earn $44 an hour, officials said.

Mahoney's EMC Contracting and FSC Construction worked on at least five Chang hotels and two built by Lam, records show.

Lam, a Chinatown garment mogul, and Chang, a high school dropout, were partners, but split in 2005.

Lam has 1,750 rooms in his city portfolio, his Web site says. Chang has more than 4,000.

Critics say exploiting immigrants helped pad profit margins.

"Sheetrock, lumber, nails, cost pretty much the same for any contractor," said Frank Spencer, supervisor of the District Council of Carpenters.

"But for these greedy people, labor is the difference and success comes off workers' backs."

Elton Lopes, a former Mahoney carpenter from Brazil, told The News that "we got paid less than the Irish and the black guys - when we got paid."

Lopes said Mahoney owes him $2,500 in unpaid wages at several jobs, including a Chang hotel at 35th St. and Eighth Ave.

Lopes said Mahoney hired him through American Latin Services Enterprises Inc.

The Bronx company gave Mahoney a "pool of illegal workers" who would not complain, two workers charged in a suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court.

In August, without admitting guilt, Mahoney settled with one worker for $6,500, court records show. The other dropped the case, his lawyer said.

bkates@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/ ... z0WqVwCZUr
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Notice that there is absolutely NO MENTION of any action against the IA workers! So many unemployed Union Construction workers in this city but this is happening out in the open! I am sure that the Taxes I would be paying are 10 times more than what these IAs MAY be paying, if they pay any at all. All while the city and state are going BROKE!