Armando Arzate speaks at the school board meeting. Cecilia Prado of Workers' Dignity (right) translates.
On Tuesday night, the majority of Nashville's Board of Public Education abstained from a vote to award two contracts to a company that has been accused of wage theft. Labor advocates celebrated the motion, a de facto denial of the contracts to Orion Building Corporation, but city attorneys warned it would invite a legal challenge.
For more than a year, Armando Arzate has been trying to convince the school board to hold Orion Building Corporation accountable for failing to pay him the $43,000 he is owed for work done at McMurray Middle School. He launched a wage-theft campaign with the help of labor rights advocates Workers’ Dignity to agitate for his backpay.
“I think that it’s time to just ask that Orion please pay me for my work,” said Arzate during the public comments period of the school board meeting.
More than a dozen local workers spoke in favor of Arzate, some of them in Spanish with Workers’ Dignity members translating. “If you steal from him, you steal from all of us,” said one man.
“I feel agitated that [Metro Nashville Public Schools] members are afraid to stand with workers out of fear that Orion will sue them,” said Cecilia Prado, co-director at Workers’ Dignity, at the meeting.
Local teachers — many of them speaking in favor of a return to virtual learning for elementary school classrooms while the COVID-19 pandemic continues — also voiced support for Arzate.
“Please stand with workers tonight,” said one teacher at Oliver Middle School, who was testifying on behalf of a colleague who tested positive for COVID-19. “Whether we work with children or concrete, we are all workers.” She called the abstaining from the Orion contract the “moral thing to do.”
Amanda Kail, president of teachers' union Metro Nashville Education Association, also expressed solidarity with Arzate.
Arzate's campaign began in June 2019. When he first got involved with Workers’ Dignity, he was fighting a wage-theft case not just at MNPS but also at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He won his campaign at Vanderbilt, in which he was owed $66,000. Arzate's company, RSA, was hired by Joe Haas, a subcontractor with Orion, but did not have a written contract for the job. Orion later offered to pay Arzate if he signed a nondisclosure agreement, but he refused.
A lawyer with Metro’s legal department noted that future contracts will require better protections for subcontractors — including those hired by other subcontractors. “Our contracts now require there be a written contract at the sub-sub level,” said attorney Melissa Roberge.
Abigail Tylor, who was not a board member when the contracts were originally approved, said such a requirement would have made it difficult for Orion and Joe Haas to play a “shell game of responsibility.” Tylor was one of the five board members who abstained.
Roberge warned the school board members that if they failed to award the contract, either by voting to deny the motion or by abstaining, it could open the door to a successful legal challenge from Orion. While the school board could deny contracts based on problems in the bidding process, they could not deny based on the past accusation of wage theft. “The situation at McMurray Middle School should not be a factor in this decision,” she said.
Board members expressed frustration at the process which seemed to make it difficult to deny contracts.
“Why do we vote on these all if there’s no legal way for us to deny the contract once it’s been through the process?” asked Emily Masters.
“My conscience, my morals, my values will not allow me to vote in favor of the Orion contracts,” said Fran Bush.
Five of the nine board members ultimately abstained from the vote — a de facto failure for the measure to award the contracts.
Three board members voted to approve, but acknowledged uneasy feelings on the board. (One board member was absent due to a family emergency.)
Rachel Anne Elrod said she wished she was aware of the wage-theft concerns back in June, when MNPS awarded a five-year contract to Orion. However, she said, “It is difficult to vote against this [new] contract when it’s the same process everyone else went through,” and voted for the contract.
“I struggle to reconcile my feelings here,” said Christiane Buggs, noting that it seemed like the people who did not pay Arzate “are getting off scot-free.” At the same time, Buggs said, she didn't see how denying the bid would help him get the money he’s owed.
Sharon Gentry, the third vote in favor of awarding Orion the contract, said board members often had to make difficult decisions. She also shared that her father was an immigrant who was exposed to asbestos doing manual labor — and couldn’t imagine he would turn down compensation like Arzate had done. “If anyone had asked my father to martyr himself for the greater good, that would be the moral issue for me.”
After the vote, Buggs asked Roberge what happens next.
“At this time, because there is a possibility of legal action, I suggest that we schedule an executive session to discuss it,” said Roberge.
Before their vote, the board members also sat through an in-depth presentation about the procurement process and how contracts are awarded, as well as the different types of contracts available to vendors.
At the last board meeting, on Oct. 27, the school board discussed the contract, and some members expressed discomfort awarding the contract to the Orion, which pushed back the decision to Tuesday’s meeting.
A recording of Tuesday's meeting is available here.
