MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY
HELENA – The
Task Force on Integrity in Wage Reporting and Employee Classification recently announced
recommendations on how to help reduce and eliminate unlawful misclassification
and payroll fraud in the construction industry.
The task
force recommended additional educational and outreach initiatives, as well as
changes to current rules and laws.
Among the
recommendations are focusing on education for construction hiring agents, establishing
a web-based dashboard that allows for quick compliance verification searches, creating
a tip line where workers of employers can report suspected abuse of Independent
Contractor Exemption Certificates, rule changes that allow inspectors to
quickly determine compliance, changes to the ICEC renewal process that ensure
the certificate holder provides additional documentation of their ongoing
eligibility to hold a certificate, and increasing the penalties imposed for
knowingly hiring an unregistered independent contractor.