Low-ball bid by FLDS company potentially has high price:
 Polygamous sect has history of using child labour and paying little
 
By Daphne Bramham
Vancouver Sun
 
Work needs to be done. But what if the only company that bids offers to do the work so cheaply that it's almost inconceivable it can be done at that rate?

This isn't about foreigners coming in or companies contracting out to the Third World.

This is what happened in Creston a couple of weeks ago. The airport needs a new fence to keep elk off the runway. But the town's tender call only yielded one bid from a local company. It was for $87,750.

Unbelievably, that's less than half the price quoted more than a decade ago for the same work even though every other construction-related project the town has tendered for has come in 30 per cent or more over the estimate.

The town signed the contract and Mayor Joe Snopek declared it "a very good deal." But he admits it did give him pause.

The contract is with a small local company called B Boys Special Products.

B Boys is owned by James, Richard and Zane Blackmore. All three live in the polygamous commune of Bountiful and are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which broke with the mainstream Mormon church after it renounced polygamy in 1890.

FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list for evading prosecution for more than two years. Now in Utah's Purgatory Correctional Centre awaiting trial on two charges of rape by accomplice for forcing an underage girl to marry an older man. Once that's dealt with, Jeffs will be transferred to Arizona to face six counts of performing the marriages of three minors to older men.

Like Jeffs, the B Boys believe that three or more wives are essential to entering the highest realm of heaven.

Polygamy is illegal in Canada and the RCMP is investigating allegations of forced marriages of underage girls in the community of Bountiful. That alone might be reason enough for the town of Creston to refuse to do business with them.

But there is another concern that the mayor admits was talked about before council approved the contract -- child labour.

Jeffs has encouraged and even forced boys to quit school after Grade 8 or Grade 9 so they can work for church-affiliated companies, where they are usually worked hard for little pay.

In March, an FLDS construction company from Hildale, Utah, was fined $10,395 for using 12-, 13- and 15-year-old boys to do a roofing contract and then failing to pay them. Paragon Construction violated U.S. wage standards, the law that prohibits youth under 14 from working in non-agricultural jobs and the youth employment regulations by allowing the 15-year-old to operate a table saw.

Child labour was an issue in Creston a couple of years ago when another FLDS company had about 20 kids -- some as young as six and none older than 13 -- barefoot and pulling shingles off the roof of a home.

Snopek called Workers Compensation and the provincial Labour Ministry offices in Cranbrook.

"They didn't do anything. The finding was that it was a family operation and they can do pretty much what they want," he said. "It puts us in a nasty position in one way. Where are the powers that be in government to shut down companies like that or do something about it?"

British Columbia's youth labour laws are among the least restrictive in North America.

With a parent's permission, a child as young as 12 can work up to 20 hours a week when school is in and 40 hours when school's out. Kids under 12 are supposed to get permission from the provincial employment standards director.

So when the B Boys were working on an earlier contract building a hangar at the airport, Snopek went out to have a look. He saw a lot of young guys, but he said they looked to be in their 20s.

Snopek said Thursday: "I'd be real concerned if they [B Boys] were using child labour [for the fence contract]."

But it's not just children that are known to have been underpaid. Young men who have left Bountiful say they worked 60-hour weeks and were paid as little as $100 and $200 a month by FLDS companies. Then they were forced to tithe back a portion to the church.

It's impossible to find out what wages B Boys pays. It is a private company and it only employs Jeffs' followers, who have all been told by Jeffs and Bountiful's bishop Jim Oler not to speak to the media or to any other outsiders.

But B Boys' total payroll last year was just $69,600, according to WorkSafe BC. That's scarcely enough to provide living wages to the three owners who then tithe a hefty share to the church.

Wages aren't something Creston's mayor wants to talk about.

"If they need the work, they bid low . . . and who am I to say what a fair bid is?"

Besides, Snopek is convinced that Creston taxpayers -- if asked -- would say the cheaper the better. If that's true, taxpayers should ask themselves whether they agree with the possible use of child labour and/or adults working for less than a livable wage and whether they are comfortable making it easier for polygamists to continue to break the law.

dbramham@png.canwest.com
 
Canada.com
Originally published October 13, 2006
 
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