2 Businessmen Plead Guilty To Denying Workers Prevailing Wage
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Two owners of a Twin Cities electrical company have pleaded guilty to not paying their employees the prevailing wage at a construction project at Normandale Community College.
Thomas Robert Clifton, 51 of Lake Elmo and Earl Keith Standafer, 57 of Burnsville, pleaded guilty last Friday in Hennepin County Court to one count of theft by swindle of more than $35,000. Clifton was sentenced to five years of probation and 270 days in the Hennepin County workhouse. Standafer was sentenced to three years of probation and 210 days in the workhouse in connection with the case.
The two men owned C & S Electric Company and in 2010, they were hired to do the electrical work for a renovation at Normandale Community College in Bloomington. The electric company submitted a low big and promised to pay a prevailing wage.
For about a year starting in August 2010, the company had 16 electricians on site with a prevailing wage of $34.30 per hour plus $24.20 per hour in fringe benefits. The two owners did not pay their workers into their retirement accounts, a fringe benefit they claimed was paid.
A complaint was filed in the winter of 2011-12 with the Minnesota Department of Labor. It showed that the company didn't pay its employees the prevailing wage and that Clifton told several employees it was due to the poor economy. The investigation showed that the electric company underpaid its employees by more than $257,000.
The general contractor for the project, Donlar Construction Co., paid the employees back wages once they learned of the investigation and successfully sued the electric company for the money.
