SacBee: TJ Cox stiffed his employees
T.J. Cox just can’t help himself. The Sacramento Bee reports today that Congressman T.J. Cox tried to stiff his own employees, taking more than 2 years to pay wages they were owed.
The kicker: the employees were employees of the Canadian mining company he has insisted wasn’t real and had “no assets, no operations, nothing” when asked why he failed to disclose it on his financial disclosure documents.
He might have been telling the truth about having “no assets” … but only because he refused to pay his employees for so long that government officials were forced “to seize his property and take liens against the company’s mining assets in the Yukon territory of Canada.”
What a mess.
In case you missed it…
California congressman took 2 years to pay wages he owed to Canadian workers
Sacramento Bee
Kate Irby
August 21, 2019
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article234047417.html
A freshman California congressman under pressure over his complicated business interests paid a four-year-old claim for wages owed to three Canadian workers just before he had to report the debt on a new financial disclosure form.
The settlement came to light in Rep. TJ Cox’s latest financial disclosure form, which was due on Aug. 13. He owed $58,000 to three employees dating back to 2015 at Constellation Mines, a company where he was a director until early this year.
After McClatchy obtained records from the Canadian government describing the debt, Cox released documents showing he paid the workers their wages. The employees signed documents confirming they received the money on Aug. 9, 12 and 13.
Cox declined to comment on the payments. Records from British Columbia show the mining employees made a complaint against Cox, D-Fresno, in 2015. He agreed to a settlement with the workers in 2017.
One employee was owed $11,000, another $20,000 and the last $27,000. But neither Cox nor the company paid the agreed upon amounts for years, prompting government officials to attempt to seize his property and take liens against the company’s mining assets in the Yukon territory of Canada, according to Julianne McCaffrey, a spokeswoman for the director of Employment Standards of British Columbia.
Cox is the chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the House Committee on Natural Resources. The committee has jurisdiction over mining issues.
Cox was listed as the director of Constellation Mines on his financial disclosure and he said he resigned in February.
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