Beaman Electric Inc. closed its doors June 3 while the 18-year-old electrical contracting services company still owed employees nearly $83,000 due to prevailing wage violations. The unpaid debt is racking up $2,600 per day in penalties owed to the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
The money owed by the city’s fifth-largest electrical contractor stems from a 2009 construction job at Missouri State University, according to Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations officials. Spokeswoman Leah Strid said a Labor investigation concluded that 26 employees were owed $82,938 in restitution. Labor spokeswoman Amy Susan said Beaman Electric owed the department $127,900 in penalties as of July 7.
Susan said should the company pay the wages in full, the department would not pursue the penalties.
Within a week of closing Beaman Electric, President Lee Beaman was hired by a competitor, Complete Electrical Solutions, along with five other former Beaman Electric employees. Beaman declined to be interviewed for this story.
James Tillman, co-owner of Complete Electrical Solutions, said he hired Beaman and others to help grow his business, and that he had no knowledge of the prevailing wage violations.
“I did not purchase Beaman Electric. I did not know about his wage violations,” he said. “It is none of my concern.”
Tillman, an electrician in the Springfield area since 1984, said he and Beaman were industry colleagues but had never worked together.
“Lee and I had worked as competitors for 18 to 20 years in the electrical services industry. We had a good relationship. When Lee decided to close his business, he came over to talk to me about employment, and I put Lee to work. We also finished some projects that Lee had ongoing,” Tillman said, pointing to jobs with Roma of Springfield and Meek’s Lumber Co.
Complete Electrical, which in its first year of business generated more than $2 million in revenues, purchased some equipment, trucks and tools from Beaman for an undisclosed amount, Tillman said. The startup now employs 28. Beaman Electric employed 29 as of May, according to Springfield Business Journal’s list of the area’s largest electrical contractors.
“We have picked up some very knowledgeable employees. It has expanded our service department,” Tillman said, noting sign and lighting services had been added.
Labor officials said the department does not have the authority to force a company to close.
Susan said Beaman shutting down its operations could lessen the chances that its employees would receive their money, but the DOLIR has a strong track record of assisting workers even though it does not have any wage collection authority.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers representative James Appleby filed the wage violation complaint, according to Susan. Appleby is the business manager and financial secretary for Local Union 453, according to an online directory at
www.ibew.org.
Susan said the department has a 90 percent success rate of recovering owed wages through its investigative efforts. Legally, the department can only go after the penalty charges, but those are dismissed after back wages are restored.
Susan said the department also can provide evidence of its findings in private cases the workers might pursue to recover their owed wages.[[In-content Ad]]
