Bronx contractor to shell out $1M to workers underpaid on affordable housing project

A Bronx contractor of affordable housing for seniors is set to pay nearly $1 million who were underpaid during the construction, the New York Daily News reported. Procida Construction Corp. will pay dozens of underpaid workers between $10,000 and $30,000 for work done in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood between 2007 and 2012, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Monday. 

Moreover, Procida owes the state $50,000 in penalties, he added. The contractor was obligated to ensure that workers were paid state-mandated rates of between $53.55 and $72.44 an hour, he said; instead, they received as little as $16 an hour and weren’t paid overtime.

“My office will aggressively pursue contractors who exploit affordable housing projects to line their own pockets by illegally underpaying workers,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

“I think this is really positive,” bricklayer Segundo Remache, told the Daily News about the announcement. “They made us work until really late, until night and never paid overtime.”

Procida principal Mario Procida said “90 percent” of the underpayments were made by MC&O Builders, Procida’s subcontractor, but that he was being held financially responsible. [NYDN]  –Hiten Samtani