Construction workers sue body shops over abuses, retaliation

Forty construction workers have sued two contractors over allegations that last-minute job assignments, low wages and vicious retaliation left them struggling to make ends meet and afraid to speak up about working conditions.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 22 in New York State Supreme Court, accuses Marin Workforce Inc. and Apex Labor Solutions LLC of violating New York City’s 2021 Construction Labor Provider Law, which establishes protections for workers employed through these temporary labor providers, often called body shops.

The suit comes after Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged to invest $22 billion in city capital and build 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade, with a $40-an-hour wage-and-benefits floor for workers on certain city-financed projects. But the lawsuit alleges that developers building subsidized housing have relied on labor providers that supply low-wage, nonunion workers while violating protections intended to safeguard their employment conditions.

According to the complaint, Marin routinely notified workers of assignments with little advance notice, sometimes requiring them to respond to text messages at 6 a.m within 15 minutes or risk losing work. The lawsuit also alleges that workers were suspended or fired for failing to accept assignments promptly or questioning the companies’ practices.

The case, described as the first private lawsuit brought under the city’s 2021 Construction Labor Provider Law, raises questions about accountability for the treatment of workers as billions of dollars in public funding flow into affordable housing.

Fear of retaliation

“When first I started working for Apex I didn't know anything about my rights and protections, but I needed a job so I just accepted the wage and the job they sent me to,” Jaylin Dunbar, one of the workers involved in the suit, said in a statement. “I felt like I didn't really have a choice or the ability to speak up.”

In an interview with another worker, who described himself as a general laborer and declined to reveal his name due to ongoing litigation, said the companies typically contacted workers between 6 and 8 a.m. to ask whether they were available. Workers could be assigned to construction sites anywhere in the city and expected to arrive shortly after being given the location, leaving little time to arrange transportation or account for other obligations.

He recalled a situation in which the company suspended him after he failed to respond immediately. He said workers understood that failing to answer dispatch messages could jeopardize their access to future assignments.

The worker initially earned roughly $20 to $21 an hour at a job in West Hempstead, Long Island, he recalled. After transferring to a site in Queens – a project at Willets Point that was funded by the city – his pay dropped to $18 an hour. He said he was asked to sign a document agreeing to the reduction and had not been informed of the city law or his rights when he started working for the companies.

The city law is intended to ensure that workers hired through body shops receive information about their assignments and employment rights. 

A representative from City Hall did not provide a comment by press time. 

Body shops targeted vulnerable workers

Roderick Jones, another worker involved in the suit, said the unpredictable scheduling was particularly difficult while he was living in a halfway house, where he had to obtain advance approval for passes to leave.

“Working at Apex, not knowing my schedule impacted my life because I was living in a halfway house at the time and I had to get my passes to leave pre-approved,” Jones said in a statement. “The instability made it extremely hard to plan my life and support my three kids.”

Neither of the two companies responded to requests for comment. 

In another interview, one construction worker described what he called blackout periods, during which workers were expected to report even when sick, under threat of suspension or termination if they took time off.

This worker also raised concerns about safety on construction sites, saying they were not provided with equipment such as dust masks, prompting him to bring his own. He also alleged that he had been asked to operate saws despite lacking the necessary certification and that some working conditions fell short of safety standards he had learned about previously.

He said he was reluctant to raise concerns because he feared being laid off and losing the income he needed to support his family.

Both workers said they learned about their legal rights through conversations with coworkers rather than from their employers, ultimately joining the lawsuit represented by the firm Quinn Emanuel. 

The complaint describes a history of alleged violations by Marin. According to the lawsuit, the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection reviewed company records from 2023 and identified at least 63 failures to provide notices of rights, 63 failures to provide certification notices and 72 failures to provide assignment notices.

Marin subsequently entered into a consent agreement in 2025, agreeing to pay $40,000 and comply with the law, according to the complaint. Nonetheless, the lawsuit alleges that the company continued violating workers’ rights after the agreement.