After putting up a new interior wall for a six-story dorm for University of Minnesota students, Ivan Gonzalez confessed to some problems with a job that he, along with dozens of other immigrant workers, were rushing to finish.

Inside a second-floor dorm room-to-be, Gonzalez said he typically worked 10-hour days, six days a week doing drywall, and was paid $220 a day, often in cash. “There’s no overtime pay, no benefits,” Gonzalez said, noting he sometimes worked 13-hour days.

Two co-workers were keen to highlight another problem: as they were leaving work one recent evening, they saw six teenagers – they guessed 13, 14 or 15 years old – scurrying out of a van and into the building to do clean-up work.

Upset by such scenes, worker advocates – from Minnesota’s attorney general to immigrant worker centers – have voiced alarm that many Twin Cities construction workers are toiling under hugely exploitative conditions.

Sometimes labor contractors disappear without paying workers the two weeks’ pay owed them.

Like Gonzalez, many workers are misclassified as independent contractors, not as employees, and their employers cheat them and the government by not paying overtime or social security, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance taxes.

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