I am a sub contractor on a school project. The General Contractor's superintendent is the brother of the school district's project manager.
On more then one occasion I have been directed to do work not in my contract but in the general contractor's contract. Or the general contractor causes me additional costs because of his actions.
I usually try and work with the general contractors in this regard and in 8 years have always came to an agreeable outcome. Usually a trade for something else he can help me with or at least my costs covered without charging overhead and profits. As long as it is a smaller cost.
Typically you do not want to be fighting with your general contractor so I accomodate them the best I can. In this situation I feel that by upseting the general contractor I also risk upseting the owner as well!
Each time this has occured I have flat out been told that I will not be compensated. Each time there is an open change order that is in need of approval by the owner for other work I have been directed to do.
While no threat has ever been directly made there has been insinuations. Each time the costs have been minimal, a few thousand here, another $5K here and $1500 there, etc. So each time I feel as though it is not worth making waves, but these costs when added together have become significant.
I have felt very intimitated by this relationship and allowed myself to be taken advantage of. Since each cost is a reduction from profits it has become a nightmare job that I have only hoped to get over and done with. But with there have been so many change orders that my original contract has doubled causing me a financial overextension. This gives the general even more leverage over me since he controls the purse strings.
If I threaten him or do something that upsets him at this point he could very well bankrupt me by dragging out my payments or witholding my payments for fabricated back charges, etc. The contract also allows him to withold what he feels would be sufficient funds from me in a the event of a legal dispute to cover his attorny fees.
I just love that part<Sarcasm>, if I try to fight him legally not only can he withold my money so I have nothing to pay my lawyer with, but he gets to use my money to pay for his own lawyers.
This has got to be a conflict of interest that they are brothers. But everything I have read about conflict of interests with goverment employees is based on the employee having a significant financial stake. It does include his immediate family, spouse, children and/or parents but I not seen that a brother is considered in this equation. I am not sure if a brother was included that the superintendent would even be considered as having a siginificant financial stake as he is only an employee of the general contractor and is paid hourly. It is possible he gets a % of the profits and it wouldn't suprise me the way he is willing to beat up his subs for his benifit, but I do not know if this is the case or not.
Any suggestions and/or comments?
On more then one occasion I have been directed to do work not in my contract but in the general contractor's contract. Or the general contractor causes me additional costs because of his actions.
I usually try and work with the general contractors in this regard and in 8 years have always came to an agreeable outcome. Usually a trade for something else he can help me with or at least my costs covered without charging overhead and profits. As long as it is a smaller cost.
Typically you do not want to be fighting with your general contractor so I accomodate them the best I can. In this situation I feel that by upseting the general contractor I also risk upseting the owner as well!
Each time this has occured I have flat out been told that I will not be compensated. Each time there is an open change order that is in need of approval by the owner for other work I have been directed to do.
While no threat has ever been directly made there has been insinuations. Each time the costs have been minimal, a few thousand here, another $5K here and $1500 there, etc. So each time I feel as though it is not worth making waves, but these costs when added together have become significant.
I have felt very intimitated by this relationship and allowed myself to be taken advantage of. Since each cost is a reduction from profits it has become a nightmare job that I have only hoped to get over and done with. But with there have been so many change orders that my original contract has doubled causing me a financial overextension. This gives the general even more leverage over me since he controls the purse strings.
If I threaten him or do something that upsets him at this point he could very well bankrupt me by dragging out my payments or witholding my payments for fabricated back charges, etc. The contract also allows him to withold what he feels would be sufficient funds from me in a the event of a legal dispute to cover his attorny fees.
I just love that part<Sarcasm>, if I try to fight him legally not only can he withold my money so I have nothing to pay my lawyer with, but he gets to use my money to pay for his own lawyers.
This has got to be a conflict of interest that they are brothers. But everything I have read about conflict of interests with goverment employees is based on the employee having a significant financial stake. It does include his immediate family, spouse, children and/or parents but I not seen that a brother is considered in this equation. I am not sure if a brother was included that the superintendent would even be considered as having a siginificant financial stake as he is only an employee of the general contractor and is paid hourly. It is possible he gets a % of the profits and it wouldn't suprise me the way he is willing to beat up his subs for his benifit, but I do not know if this is the case or not.
Any suggestions and/or comments?