A new report from the Worker-driven Social Responsibility Network surveys working conditions in construction, and proposes a path forward focused on proven models of worker-driven enforcement. “Building Dignity and Respect: The Case for Worker-driven Social Responsibility in the Twin Cities Construction Industry” is based on primary source data collected from surveys by Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), a human rights organization that focuses on deep leadership development with low-wage workers in the Twin Cities metro area.

Among the workers surveyed by CTUL, nearly half of respondents reported having experienced wage theft, most commonly in the form of unpaid overtime. A third of workers said they don’t feel that they can complain to supervisors about concerns without fear of retaliation. They cited threats of being fired, blacklisted, deported, or kicked out of employer-provided housing as forms of retaliation common in the industry.

This report comes just weeks after labor abuse in Minnesota construction made national headlines in a major trafficking case. Last month, Ricardo Batres, the owner of American Contractors and Associates LLC who operated as a labor broker on construction projects tied to several well-known developers, pled guilty to charges of labor trafficking. The charges were related to severe abuses, including threatening people with deportation when they complained about problems in the workplace, stealing wages by withholding them and failing to take basic safety precautions.

“We know that it is not only us who are being abused,” said Jose Adalid Zavala Lopez, one of the workers who, motivated by the mistreatment he experienced while working for Batres, chose to participate in the labor trafficking investigation.

The report outlines the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model, where corporations at the top of product supply chains or labor contracting chains adopt legally-binding standard-setting agreements with a human rights organization that require those corporations to impose market consequences on suppliers who violate workers’ rights. CTUL and its partners are developing the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council (BDC), a standards-setting and monitoring organization, based on the WSR model. Under this program, developers and general contractors will enter legally binding program participation agreements with BDC that require all contractors at every tier of a project to abide by basic standards that protect the rights of workers to fair treatment, a safe workplace, and a voice in their working conditions.