Construction workers call out use of 'body shops' at city-funded construction site

Clad in bright orange ponchos, construction workers, labor leaders and elected officials braved the rain Thursday to rally against unsafe and exploitative labor practices they said are occurring at Kingsland Commons, a city-funded affordable housing project in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

Standing in front of the partially-completed complex, speakers called on city officials to strengthen oversight of labor practices on city-funded projects, and accused the Marin Organization and Apex Labor Solutions, the labor brokers hired for the city-funded project, of being construction industry “body shops” – suppliers of cheap non-union labor which exploit the bodies of vulnerable workers. 

One worker, who asked to remain anonymous because he's still employed at the Kingsland Commons site, said that the pay – between $18 and $20 an hour – is not enough to do anything more than survive inside the shelter he lives in.

“I'm in a men’s shelter. I got a seven-year-old son, and I'm working on getting my own place. So, you know, making $18 an hour right now just not cutting it,” he said. “It’s just keeping me afloat, and I feel like they know they [are] keeping us afloat. But at the same time, it's not helping us, not one bit.” 

Jaylin Dunbar, a former employee of the Marin Organization, told The Chief that companies like Marin take advantage of people who are at a low point, and because of that are able to compensate them poorly for such a dangerous job. 

“They are specifically targeting disenfranchised workers,” said Justice Favor, a field organizer at the Mason Tenders District Council. “Black and brown workers, a lot of formerly incarcerated, a lot of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and immigrant workers.” 

Both Dunbar and the other worker said that often people were hired with no experience and sent to a site untrained on their first day. This inevitably led to unsafe conditions.

And injuries are frequent.

“A lot of guys have gone to the hospital on a number of occasions,” Dunbar said. 

Making matters worse, workers will often work through the pain of their injuries because they need the pay, and because workers' compensation is essentially not an option for most.

“The moment they compensate you, you're not coming back to the site,” Dunbar said. “They're gonna fire you because now you're a liability.

The Marin Organization and Apex Labor Solutions did not respond to requests for comment.

'We have got to kill this model'

Unionized workers tend to get far more extensive safety and regulatory training before they ever set foot on a job site, said Jeffrey, a construction worker and member of LIUNA Laborers Local 79. The outcomes speak for themselves – in 2024, more than 81 percent of the 31 OSHA-investigated construction-related deaths in New York occurred on non-union sites. 

Companies connected to the Marin Organization, including Apex Solutions which was directly in charge of hiring at the Kingsland Commons site, have faced scrutiny in the past for a variety of harmful labor practices, including violating sick leave protections, wage theft and unsafe workplace practices.

Legislation has been passed in recent years aimed at increasing transparency and worker protections, including the recent passage of the Construction Justice Act. Passed in December 2025, the law requires a $40 combined benefits package and pay floor for some city affordable housing projects and establishes local hiring minimums, but that doesn’t go into effect until 2027. 

Despite this progress, as the city moves forward with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan of using union labor to build 200,000 affordable homes, advocates still worry about the continued use of body shops. 

“They are all too common across New York,” said Christine Culpepper, a construction safety instructor at Local 79. “We have got to kill this model that is killing the blue-collar construction workers of this city.”