Verizon is a telecom behemoth, with revenues of $32 billion and profits of $4.3 billion in the first three months of this year.
But like most corporations these days, Verizon employs as few workers as possible, and contracts out as much of its work as possible. One example of that is found in this story in Wednesday's Albany Times Union, headlined "Immigrant labor brings Verizon FiOS to Guilderland" (get around the paywall by searching the headline on Google, then clicking on the result).
The TU sent its best feature writer, Paul Grondahl, out to a suburban town to do a featurey story about the crew doing the ditch-digging for Verizon's fiber-optic Internet service, which it is slowly expanding in New York, and only in the best neighborhoods.
Featurey like this:
From sunrise to sunset these men toil, anonymous souls bent to their task. It is a grinding low-tech labor that will bring new high-speed broadband Internet technology to affluent homeowners.
Aside from the featurey flourishes, there are plenty of interesting facts about this work -- the work itself, and who does it and who won't, which is clearly related to how much they are paid by a subcontractor to a contractor to Verizon.
More, below.
The work itself is digging a three-foot trench in the street right-of-way, using a pneumatic piston tool to get under driveways and streets, and installing plastic conduit for the fiber-optic wire in the trench.
The diggers work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.. They earn $150 a day. They usually work a half-day on Saturday. They get Sunday off. They stay at the Super 8 motel in town and are driven to the work site in a battered old van.
Who does it -- nine men working for Calini & Associates of North Kingstown, R.I., a subcontractor to White Mountain Cable Construction of New Hampshire.
Robert Berlacu, the owner of Calini & Associates and crew supervisor in Guilderland, is from Romania. The nine crew members are from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Mexico. (They are apparently all working legally as U.S. citizens or green card holders; Grondahl does not mention or hint otherwise.)
They amount to a United Nations of workers. They converse in Spanish, English and Spanglish.
They are the new migrant workers, chasing the high-tech boom and moving seasonally up the East Coast from winter jobs in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas to upstate New York in the spring.
Only one is quoted by name in the story, Jose Ramirez, who immigrated from Nicaragua in 1989 and now lives in Atlanta, and at 48 is the "old man of the crew."
He calls the work: "a good job. We can send money home to our families. I miss home (Nicaragua), but life is better here."
Who won't do it -- not much on this, except Berlacu saying: "You can't be afraid to work. It's good money, but you've got to earn it. I've tried to hire American college kids. They usually only last a day or two."
Berlacu does not mention "trying to hire" any other type of "American" young men than college students.
And "good money," really? Grondahl is told that the men make $150 a day, so they would presumably make $825 a week ($150 on weekdays, $75 on Saturday).
But they are working 66 hours a week (12 on five weekdays, six on the half-day Saturday). Assuming they are paid as employees and that federal and state labor laws are being followed (which I do not), they should be paid straight time for 40 hours and time-and-a half for 23 hours (26 minus six unpaid half-hours for lunch).
To get to $825 a week, the workers' hourly rate is about $11. The math for $11 -- 40 x 11=440, 23 x 16.50=379.5, 440 + 379.5=819.5.
The $11 is somewhat more than the living wage for one person for the Albany ($9.50) and Atlanta ($10.10) areas, though it is likely that many in the crew are supporting more than just themselves.
But it substantially below the prevailing wage (roughly the union wage rate) for laborers on government projects under the Davis-Bacon Act in Albany County -- about $25 plus another $20 or so in fringe benefits.
While this is not a government project, it apparently is eligible for some state funding. The story notes that the state has a "$500 million incentive plan to match dollar-for-dollar private investment on expanding high-speed Internet networks."
The minimum wage in New York is $8.75 an hour and will rise to $9 next year. Earlier this year, Gov. Cuomo proposed raising it to $11.50 in New York City and $10.50 outside the city; the Legislature has not acted on that proposal.
Back to the story, Grondahl was not told that the Guilderland trench diggers made $11 an hour plus overtime, which leads me to suspect that the workers are not employees of Calini & Associates at all, but subcontractors themselves.
Subcontractors are responsible for paying the full contribution to Social Security and Medicare -- 15.3 percent of net income, with half of that deductible from federal income taxes. They are also responsible for making quarterly estimated federal and state income tax payments.
Subcontractors are not covered by an employer's workers compensation insurance, paying for that would cut another 6 percent or so from gross income in New York. They are also responsible for their own health insurance, which is variable but would probably cost $200 or so a month for an individual.
And, of course, it is illegal to treat such workers as subcontractors, and that is a too common form of wage theft.
Either way, they are not being paid "good money" for more than 60 hours a week of demanding physical labor, IMHO.
Even so, I'll bet my house there are plenty of "American" young men in the Albany area who are willing and able to do this work, and the subcontractor would not have to pay for motel rooms for them.
Berlacu says he plans to hire two more nine-man crews to complete the Guilderland project. It would be interesting to read in a follow-up whether any local young men get those jobs.
It would also be interesting to learn whether the subcontractor is paying his ditch diggers legally.
Stay tuned.