McClatchy and ProPublica Win Sidney Award

By: Press Release

McClatchy and ProPublica win the October Sidney Award for “Contract to Cheat,” a year-long investigation showing that roughly 10 million construction workers are being misclassified as independent contractors. The scam harms workers and cheats taxpayers out of billions of dollars, but regulators have done nearly nothing about it.

Reporters from eight McClatchy papers and the company’s D.C. bureau teamed up with reporters from ProPublica to investigate misclassification in 28 states. This award recognizes lead reporters Mandy Locke and Franco Ordoñez, database reporters David Raynor and Ryann Grochowski Jones, and McClatchy staff.

Over the course of a year, they interviewed hundreds of construction workers, company owners, officials, union leaders, statisticians, and economists.

The team found that taxpayers lose $400 million a year in tax revenue to misclassification in Florida, nearly $500,000 from North Carolina, and $1.2 billion from Texas. Misclassified employees miss out on unemployment insurance payments and sometimes worker’s compensation. If just 20 percent of workers in the construction industry are misclassified, a very low estimate, the federal government is missing out on $8.5 billion a year from that sector alone.

“‘Contract to Cheat’ tackles a very important, but practically ignored issue,” said Sidney judge Lindsay Beyerstein, “Reporters in eight newsrooms spanning seven states fought tirelessly to gain access to public records documenting the vast scope of misclassification on publicly funded projects."

Franco Ordoñez is Washington correspondent for The Charlotte Observer and covers immigration and labor for McClatchy. His work has been honored with the Casey Medal, Gerald Loeb and Robert F. Kennedy journalism awards.

Mandy Locke joined The News & Observer in 2004. Her reporting has been honored with a Gerald Loeb Award and Michael Kelly Award.

David Raynor is database editor for The News & Observer. He has worked on several award-winning projects, including "Prognosis: Profits," which won more than 10 national journalism awards.

Ryann Grochowski Jones is a data reporter at ProPublica. Previously, she was a data reporter for Investigative Newsource/KPBS in San Diego.