The basics of roofing employment law

By Emma Peterson. 

Employment attorney Benjamin Briggs answers common roofing labor classification questions. 

Recently, Benjamin Briggs of Adams and Reese stopped by The Coffee Shops™ for an episode of Roofing Road Trips®. Benjamin is a board-certified labor and employment attorney with over a decade of experience helping roofers navigate employment laws. He shared, “I've been practicing law for maybe 15-16 years now. But for the last decade, I've pretty much exclusively been a labor and employment attorney for roofers, about 90% of my clients are roofers.” 

And over that decade of work focusing on roofing, Benjamin has fielded almost every question related to employment law that could come up. Here’s his answers to some of the most common ones.  

Why is roofing employment law so complicated?  

There are a couple factors that Benjamin highlighted to answer this question. For one, 90% of roofing employees are non-traditional. He explained:  

Roofing industry professionals are not your traditional in-office workers. They're project managers, superintendents, salespeople, field crews, etc. You have a dynamic where with some of these workers where there's just not as much daily contact. There's not as much oversight and it's easy for some things to be lost in communication, whereas in other industries you've got the bulk of your employees in the same office. 

Two, roofing is really unique. Benjamin elaborated, “A lot of different things can come into play with roofers that are somewhat unique to that industry, things like OSHA issues, workers comp situations, immigration challenges, work authorization, ICE issues, language barrier, etc.”  

So, when you combine these unique situations with that non-traditional structure, it creates a complex employment landscape to navigate legally.  

Who is conducting employment audits?  

Another common question Benjamin gets is, “Who is looking into my employment records? Who’s auditing companies looking for mistakes?” Like the other question, there are multiple answers. Benjamin shared:  

[Audits] can happen a lot of different ways. One that I’ve seen commonly is a crew member gets injured, hires a workers comp attorney and that attorney gathers documentation, realizes that their client is misclassified and expands from there...It could be a worker who gets let go, they're upset and they see an ad from an attorney asking them if they’re being paid for OT and they call the number. Then, that attorney looks into everything and if they’re misclassified, you have a lawsuit...I’ve also seen the Department of Labor conduct audits, some triggered by things like IRS issues and others that are completely random. 

What can roofers do to ensure their employment practices are compliant?  

With the combination of such a complex landscape and so many ways issues can arise, employment law can feel like a bit of a minefield for roofers. But just because it’s a challenge to navigate, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Benjamin highlighted some of the first steps roofers can take to protect themselves from employment law issues and misclassifications:  

The first step is to reach out to an experienced employment attorney. Think of it like a health issue, I’m not going to try to solve it on my own, I’m going to seek out a doctor and specifically one that specializes in whatever area I need. That’s what an experienced employment attorney can do for your business – they are specialized in helping roofers like you understand the issues, navigate the options and build a productive game plan. 

Want to learn more about employment law? Listen to the full podcast or Watch the recording of the whole conversation with Benjamin.