Bend City Councilors have considered an ordinance requiring more transparency of worker pay on construction projects. (123RF)

A city goal Bend City Councilors considered – and put on hold for now – would have the city requiring disclosure of worker pay on private construction projects.

It might do it through “existing regulatory structures, disclosure agreements or other local mechanisms.”

This sort of regulation would be the city insisting that a private business disclose what it is paying its workers. Why is that the city’s business? Why the construction industry?

Bend City Councilor Megan Perkins brought the issue up for her colleagues to consider. Her concern is subcontractors in the construction industry may not properly pay their workers, engaging in wage theft and also that there may be human trafficking.

There is evidence the issues are a problem in the construction industry. For instance, if you look at the annual report for Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, the residential building construction industry had the top amount of unpaid wages and penalties among Oregon industries. BOLI has also lacked staff to investigate all wage claims.

Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya highlighted the problem in the construction industry earlier this year.

“Wage theft and worker misclassification is a serious problem affecting countless construction

workers who do not have the means or the power to assert their rights against employers,” he wrote. “The problems of wage theft are compounded by structural issues in the construction industry where projects often have contractual layers of independent contractors and subcontractors.”

What Perkins proposed is for the city “to have basically what is called a transparency ordinance,” she said. “It could require a list of all employees working on the site and some require that contractors report if they have had enforcement actions from violating the laws.”

Salem has a related ordinance for projects that receive city funding. But there are complications. Businesses may not appreciate the added regulation. It could be an added enforcement issue for city staff who are trying to keep up with plenty of issues regarding development. So for now, the goal was put on hold.

The Oregon Legislature recently took action that may help address the problem. Gov. Tina Kotek just signed Senate Bill 426. The bill isn’t the same thing as a transparency ordinance. It allows a worker on a project to go to court to recover wages from a project owner and contractor even if they worked for a subcontractor. Oregon’s attorney general could also go to court on their behalf.

Perkins said she wants to investigate what more the city could and should do.

“In a community that is building as many homes as we are, it’s a very big issue,” she said.

She’s right, though, if there is going to be more such regulation, it might be better for it to come at the state level, rather than each Oregon community devising its own transparency ordinance.