A Hillsboro, Ore., janitorial business failed to pay employees nearly $200,000 for work on five construction projects at public institutions since 2011, including the University of Oregon’s recent soccer and lacrosse field expansion, and the new state psychiatric hospital in Junction City, state labor officials said Wednesday.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said it has collected $160,000 in wages owed by Cornerstone Janitorial Services, compensating 58 workers. BOLI collected the funds directly from Cornerstone in multiple payments over the last year, spokesman Charlie Burr said. The state then distributed money to the employees it determined were underpaid.
The agency collected the final payment — $31,700 — from Cornerstone last week, Burr said. BOLI expects to distribute the payment to 21 employees by the end of the month, raising the total to about $192,000.
“A fair amount of work was done in the last year to collect wages that were owed,” Burr said.
Cornerstone, owned by Sang In Nam, works with building contractors, doing site maintenance and cleanup at large construction sites.
A majority of the unpaid wages — $121,485.63 — was owed to 22 Cornerstone employees who worked on the UO athletic department’s Casanova Center expansion and rebuild of the women’s soccer and lacrosse complex, which ran from 2011 to 2013. Both projects are at the Autzen Stadium complex.
A woman who answered the phone number listed for Cornerstone on Wednesday said Nam was unavailable to comment, then hung up.
Eleven Cornerstone employees were owed $10,932.10 for work on the state psychiatric hospital in Junction City, which opened in March.
BOLI also secured unpaid wages from Cornerstone on a Salem hospital project, an underground parking garage at Portland Community College and a high school renovation in Stayton, southeast of Salem.
Through an investigation and conversations with Nam and employees, labor investigators also discovered unpaid overtime wages, falsified payroll statements and a failure to keep proper employment records, the agency said.
Hoffman Construction reported the unpaid wages to BOLI late last year, documents show. The Portland general contractor has built numerous UO athletics facilities in recent years, including the Casanova Center expansion, soccer and lacrosse project. Hoffman was the general contractor on each of the projects on which Cornerstone allegedly underpaid workers.
Burr said Nam could face additional fines, and possibly be banned from working on taxpayer-funded projects for three years.
“The next stage is to take a look at (possible) administrative prosecution, and see if the company could potentially be debarred,” Burr said.
A total of 58 Oregon companies or individuals are currently banned from working on public construction projects.
Cornerstone also faces a civil rights complaint filed by a Portland employee last year, alleging he was fired after Nam discovered the employee had complained to BOLI that Cornerstone was failing to pay wages.
That investigation is ongoing, Burr said.
