Legal Dilemma: How to Handle a Contractor's Missing Labor License for Hotel Construction?

Dear All, please let me know the legal opinion for the construction of hotel work. We are the principal employer, and we have one contractor who has two work contracts at the same project site. The first contract started on 20th January 2018 with 17 workers, and the second contract began on 1st September 2018 with 27 workers. However, they have not yet obtained a labor license. The contractor now wishes to secure a labor license for both contracts under a single license.

Nature of Work

The nature of work for the first contract is electrical work for basements, and the second contract involves electrical substation and electrical installation work from the ground floor to the 4th-floor level. We have already issued Form V. Please advise on the necessary steps to take in this situation.

Please respond as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Understanding the Contracts and Licensing Requirements

If the narrative is rightly understood, a single principal employer has entered into two separate contracts with different time schedules and stages of work with the same contractor for the construction of a hotel complex.

Concerning the time schedule, both are distinctly different contracts, though at some point in time, both are simultaneously executed by the same contractor. The first contract, relating to the electrical work of the basement, was mentioned to have commenced on 20th January 2018. There is no mention of its completion, but presumably, it continues. Since the maximum number of contract labor in that work is only 17, there is no necessity for obtaining a license under the CLRA Act, 1970.

Regarding the second work, which commenced on 1st September 2018 with 27 contract workmen, a license should have been obtained by the contractor, and a notice of the commencement of work should have been submitted by the principal employer and the contractor to the licensing officer. Since this work is still in progress, an application for a license should be immediately submitted by the contractor, at least now.