Sinclair Community College Tells Buckeye They Will Hire Someone ElseTo Finish The Job

When Sinclair Community College awarded a bid to Buckeye Electric in June of 1998 for lighting in four buildings on campus, little did the customer realize that it would have to cajole the company into performing the work as bid in a timely manner, or that it would be receiving letters from Buckeye Electric threatening legal action almost two full years later.

In December 1998, the college’s engineer had to threaten Buckeye Electric with legal action for causing delays on the project. Buckeye Electric also sought to install substandard ballasts. When the project was not completed before classes resumed, Buckeye Electric complained about delays in getting access to classrooms.

In March of 1999, the project was still not completed and the college complained in another letter about delays and difficult lighting conditions in work areas.

In October of 1999, the college wrote Buckeye Electric a letter complaining about further delays and notified the company they were prepared to hire another company to finish the job.

In March of 2000, Buckeye Electric sent the college a letter stating that it had been underpaid and threatened legal action. Buckeye Electric claimed it had entered into a "verbal agreement" to have its bid amount increased by $30,000.

Buckeye Blames Others When It Underpays Workers

Buckeye Electric is not above blaming others for its failures.

After nearly two decades of the Ohio Department of Commerce hearing complaints about Buckeye Electric’s failure to abide by state law and pay its workers prevailing wage, Buckeye Electric filed a complaint of its own.

"They are harassing us," Buckeye Electric Vice-President Richard G. Smythe said in a letter to the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Labor and Worker Safety.

In a letter received by the State on October 30, 2000, Buckeye complained that it is continually being harassed on all of its projects because the company’s payroll is constantly being audited for failure to pay workers prevailing wage.

In a brazen attempt to stop scrutiny of its tendencies to underpay workers in violation of the law, Buckeye Electric asked the state agency to conduct an investigation of the very people who report Buckeye Electric for violating the law.

Ironically, Buckeye Electric wrote the letter of complaint even though the audits Smythe referred to at the Forensic Lab Facility, the Vandalia Justice Center and the London Correctional Institution verified that Buckeye Electric underpaid its employees.

The company called the underpayment of nine employees "minor discrepancies." To employees trying to support a family, an "underpayment" of $259 is not a minor figure. And Buckeye Electric has filed liens against customers for much, much less, including a lien for $80 against a Centerville woman. Apparently it is only a "minor" matter if it is Buckeye Electric who doesn’t pay its bills.

Buckeye Electric has a long history of failing to pay prevailing wage and the state of Ohio is very familiar with the company’s failure. In the 1980s, the state Supreme Court allowed criminal charges to be filed against the company for failing to pay prevailing wage.