Paul Bass Photo
The orders posted at Dwight Gardens.
The state has slapped contractors working at a second New Haven building project with stop-work orders based on claims of failure to follow worker’s compensation rules.
The Department of Labor slapped the latest orders — a batch of three —Monday on Dwight Gardens, an 80-unit former coop at 99 Edgewood Ave. being rescued and rebuilt by a Fairfield builder, Navarino Capital, as affordable family rentals.
The department charged one contractor working on the project, Oliveria Hardwood, with “materially understating or concealing payroll.” it charged two others — EFA Home Improvement and Darren Smith — with “failure to secure worker’s compensation.”
Smith called the citation “bogus.”
Smith grew up at Dwight Gardens. He became a skilled carpenter. After some rocky years, he got his life together and has started his own small company, which Navarino hired to do the sheetrocking on the first 48 gut-rehabbed apartments. (This article details his story.)
When the labor department showed up on site, Smith said, he wasn’t there. Nor were his workers. Just a partner. He said he confirmed with his insurance company that he indeed has a worker’s compensation insurance policy. He suggested that construction unions may have sent the department to the site.
“I’m a small guy. This is what the union does. Why? They want all the work,” Smith said.
Ini any case, Smith planned quickly to take care of the paperwork.
Carl Guzzardi, unemployment insurance tax director for the labor department, said inspectors do sometimes act on tips. But in this case the department visited Dwight Gardens as part of a “regular routine of inspection construction sites,” he said. The department has also slapped stop-work orders on the 280 Crown Street apartment-construction project downtown based on similar worker’s compensation allegations.
“There was a worker’s compensation policy. But it identified zero employees,” Guzzardi said. “We’re certainly in this and any case looking for entity to provide us with an yinformation they can to suggest they have proper coverage.”
Work by other contractors proceeded at the site.