June 2009 Vol. 12 No. 6

NBC General Contractors: A criminal case

Tim Lipscomb, Senior Organizer

A five-year investigation initiated by NCCRC organizers, followed up by the Carpenters 46 Counties’ Compliance division, and completed by the California Insurance Fraud Investigator’s office ended in the arrest of the owner of NBC General Contractors on May 26, 2009. NBC owner Monica Ung is charged with 48 felony counts of embezzlement, forgery, perjury, unemployment tax evasion and public works wage fraud. According to the investigators’ findings, NBC owes workers and the state of California millions of dollars.

The story begins in July 2004, when NCCRC organizers began monitoring NBC General Contractors, an Oakland-based contractor working in Fremont at Hopkins Junior High School on the school modernization project. NBC had been active in securing several prevailing wage school and city projects in the Bay Area. In the investigation, the organizers found NBC workers were putting in 12–14 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When NBC’s certified payrolls were requested and obtained, they showed a surprising number of workers who were reported as working only 20 hours a week. Rich Cary, a Labor Compliance Investigator from the Carpenters 46 Counties Conference Board, was brought in to assist in the investigation, and meetings were held with Fremont Unified School District and its Labor Compliance arm, Harris & Associates.

When our complaints fell on deaf ears, we began bringing workers from NBC together with their check stubs and statements of wages owed, largely for overtime not paid. The numbers quickly climbed to hundreds of thousands of dollars owed.

Due to the lack of response from the agencies directly involved, the union made the decision to seek criminal charges, based on the evidence, because that would have the most impact. We took the NBC workers to the State of California Insurance Fraud Investigator’s office to interview the workers. The state office was excited about the case, and said it was now going to conduct its own investigation.

Fast forward to May 26 this year, and case complete. Monica Ung, the owner of NBC General Contractors, and two others were arrested on 48 felony counts of embezzlement, forgery, perjury, unemployment tax evasion and public works wage fraud.

The wages owed to NBC workers total $3.6 million. NBC General Contractors owes the state of California $1.5 million dollars in unpaid Workmen’s Compensation premiums. No wonder they were the low bidder!

Keeping our members and signatories working by removing those contractors that break the law to gain an edge is a top priority. Speeding up the process—that would be good, too! Now that we have a major success under our belt, we hope to get a faster response, and take more criminal contractors off the jobsite.

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