Nov. 14, 2019 (Nashville). On a frosty evening, a packed house of construction workers and their supporters brought the heat to the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board meeting, urging Superintendent Dr. Battle and the School Board to stop wage theft in our schools!
In a powerful display of solidarity, 35 workers, parents, teachers, and students rallied in the frigid cold to demand justice for Armando, Rafael and their crew as they fight to win back the $43,000 they say they are owed for laying concrete at McMurray Middle School. When they walked in, they were greeted by a couple dozen more supporters. The standing room only board meeting had to open up a second conference room for the overflow crowd.
Armando and his crew worked for a subcontractor of Orion Building Corp, a company that frequently gets million-dollar contracts from MNPS, Vanderbilt University, and Vanderbilt Hospital. Since bringing their problem to Dr. Battle’s office in June, workers are still waiting for a response.
But for his work at MNPS, Armando says he’s gotten promises but no action. “I look to teachers and to you, because I trust your word because you are educating our children,” Armando shared with the School Board, “I come from a family who taught me that my word was more important than anything on a sheet of paper.”
School Board members: A Mark of Shame
School Board member Rachel Anne Elrod, whose district includes McMurray Middle School, said, “It is a mark of shame on that school that it is beautiful but at the cost of other people.” Noting that many of the workers are parents, she continued: “It is unfortunate and hard to think about a parent that is having to take their child into a school that they helped build but then are not paid for appropriately. I would like us to see more leadership on that process.”
Board member Gini Pupo-Walker said, “I have been frustrated — understatement — about the lack of leadership we have shown on this issue of wage theft. It’s unacceptable that our students and parents are begging for them to get paid for work they’ve done on our building.”
“[A]t the end of the day it falls back on us,” continued Board member Fran Bush. “So whatever company we’re using, we need to make sure they’re doing their due diligence. We need to make sure these workers are paid, because it’s certainly unfair what they’ve had to endure.” Watch the full video of comments here.
Two months ago, we saw what public pressure could do when companies avoid accountability. Vanderbilt University also contracted with Orion, and when Vanderbilt students and professors organized in solidarity with workers, the construction crew won $66,000 in wage claims.
Still, Metro Schools’ administration refuses to show the moral courage to take responsibility for hiring a general contractor that seems to wash its hands of wage theft allegations on its worksites. What message are they teaching our children?
We will not tolerate silence from MNPS, and we continue to urge the School Board and Interim Superintendent Dr. Battle to:
- Make sure all construction workers and subcontractors on MNPS projects be fully paid for their labor.
- Hold general contractor Orion Building Corporation morally responsible for all laborers on their projects with MNPS.
- Only enter into contracts with general contractors that use Surety Bonds or similar mechanisms that guarantee that everyone who works to improve our schools are fully paid. This should never have happened, and it can be avoided in the future with this simple action.
The longer MNPS waits to take action, the longer our list of supporters grows. Thank you to the dozens of supporters, especially Metro Nashville Education Association, which unanimously voted to support the construction crew. Shout out to the Laborers, Carpenters, and Painters unions, to the Central Labor Council, Sunrise Movement, and to parents, Vanderbilt Divinity students, teachers, and parents. for turning out and standing with workers fighting to life wages and conditions in the most hazardous city for construction in the South.
Will you add your name to this list by signing the petition to keep wage theft out of our schools?