A Texas company accused of human trafficking in a federal lawsuit has been working as a subcontractor on the Residences at Little Nell construction project in Aspen.
Leno and Company, which is registered as an LLC in Denton, Texas, has been operating as a labor broker at several construction sites in Colorado, according to a carpenters’ union representative, despite the fact that it is not registered to do business in the state of Colorado.
A representative of Swinerton, the general contractor on the Residences, said that in light of the allegations in the lawsuit, Leno and Company is no longer working with the project. The suit also seeks payment of unpaid wages plus damages for 69 Mexican workers allegedly brought to Colorado on false documentation.
Leno was hired by Spacecon Specialty Contractors, the drywall subcontractor for the Residences at Little Nell, to provide workers for the project, but many of them are not being treated properly, said Dave Wilson with the Carpenters’ District Council of Kansas City and vicinity, which covers the Aspen area.
Wilson said Leno hired 35 to 40 of the 55 employees Spacecon has working on the project recently, although the number of workers frequently fluctuates based on the amount of work available.
Most of the men Leno hired were being paid in cash, and some of them were not paid for weeks at a time, said Wilson. He said the source of his information is a union representative who travels to various job sites around Colorado and interviews workers.
“So there’s no records of these guys ever being there, and it’s a source of cheap labor,” said Wilson. He explained that that is how contractors like Spacecon were able to underbid other, more scrupulous companies and get contracts.
The carpenters’ union has been protesting the Residences at Little Nell’s labor practices with a manned banner at the edge of Aspen’s gondola plaza since late January.
Spacecon officials have not returned multiple calls requesting comment, but Kevin Ott, division manager for Colorado for Swinerton, the general contractor on the Residences project, was surprised to hear about the legal action.
Last week Ott said that if Spacecon knew about what Leno was being accused of, “they’d probably terminate that arrangement,” and on Monday he said his contact at Spacecon had told him that Leno is no longer working on the project.
According to Wilson, a representative of Leno and Company promised the men $18 per hour plus a little more than two weeks of free lodging in a hotel to work on the Residences at Little Nell project. What some of the men received instead was $16 per hour, with the cost of the lodging deducted from their pay, said Wilson, who also said the men were being crowded four to a room and were being charged more than the actual hotel rate. Some of the men have quit because of the broken promises, he said.
Spacecon claimed in a written statement earlier this year that all of its employees are eligible for benefits, including medical, dental and life insurance. The carpenters’ union, however, claims that many of the workers do not receive the benefits or overtime to which they are legally entitled under Colorado law because they are misclassified as independent contractors, or sometimes not documented at all.
An independent contractor can generally set his own hours and breaks, but when a worker is “told when to work and what to do at work, how to complete the work, that’s an employee, not an independent contractor,” said Wilson.
Ott said Swinerton has been working with Spacecon “for years, and they’re standup people.” However, he also said that while Swinerton abides by federal and state regulations to make sure its own work force is being paid properly and has legal documentation, it does not track subcontractors’ labor forces.
“There’s a way to do it, but it would be an administrative nightmare, and their wages are none of our business,” said Ott.
Asked how the drywall subcontractor was chosen for the Residences at Little Nell project, Ott said it was “the lowest bid from a qualified reputable contractor, and that’s Spacecon.”
The lawsuit
Glenwood Springs attorney Don Kaufman originally filed a lawsuit in January on behalf of 65 Mexican workers who claimed they had been brought to Colorado for jobs that never materialized or paid far less than what had been promised.
The men reportedly pai d hundreds of dollars for transportation and paperwork — legal H2B visas, which are issued by the U.S. State Department for temporary labor.
The lawsuit named JNS Construction Services LLC of Austin, Texas, Leno and Company and Midwest Drywall Co. of Wichita, Kan., as defendants. Midwest has since become a plaintiff in the suit, claiming that it had no knowledge of JNS’s and Leno’s using its corporate identity to obtain visas for 100 workers.
“One hundred got here on buses and were told by Leno that they have crappy jobs — instead of $15 per hour they got $5 per hour,” said Kaufman. “If you use these misrepresentations, it falls into the definition of human trafficking.”
In March, the case was moved to federal court and the human trafficking charge — along with charges of violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, forced labor and federal racketeering — was added at around that time.
“Defendants organized and participated in a criminal worker exploitation scheme designed to fraudulently obtain approval to employ H-2B workers in order to subject the workers to forced labor and exploit them for personal profit,” the lawsuit says.
Many of the workers returned to Mexico, but some, burdened by the debt they had incurred to get here, couldn’t afford to return. According to the carpenters’ union’s Wilson, several workers said they had been promised work on a Spacecon project in Aspen — presumably the Residences at Little Nell — and some might be working there now. According to the lawsuit, three of the plaintiffs live in Basalt and six live in Glenwood Springs.
The relationship between Leno and JNS is unclear. Leno Asebedo is the manager and registered agent of Leno and Co. LLC, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office. The lawsuit names Leno Aseudo, and Kaufman said the company was difficult to find. It is not registered in Colorado, which officially means it cannot conduct business here, although a spokesperson for the Colorado secretary of state’s office said there is no real enforcement or state-imposed penalties for not registering.
Kaufman said Leno is “the guy who managed transport for them (JNS).”
But a representative of JNS, who asked not to be named, said JNS was the drywall subcontractor for Leno. He categorically denied the allegations, saying that the men were brought here legally and JNS was awarded the visas to work for Midwest, but when the men showed up JNS discovered they were the wrong kind of workers.
“Only 16 of 80 could do the work, and they refused to do the work,” he said, adding that JNS had been duped by the company in Mexico that had helped it hire the workers. They had asked for drywallers and instead got 35 welders, the man said.
He added that the men were fed and housed every day they were here, but they refused to go to work because they had lied on their applications.
“I really feel like I’ve been dealt an unfair hand, and believe they intended to do what they’ve done,” he said. “We’re not the bastards we’ve been made out to be.”
Reached by telephone, a man who acknowledged that he was Leno Asebedo/Aseudo refused to answer any questions, except to say, “I don’t have nothing to do with that no more,” presumably with regard to the Residences at Little Nell.
lutz@aspendailynews.com