Minorities gripe they get stiffed on subway work.

Several small, minority- and women-owned subcontractors on Metro Rail projects are complaining they are not being paid for their work, endangering the companies' very survival.

At least one Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member acknowledges the problem as serious and is working to solve it. MTA officials said they are conducting "DBE (disadvantaged business enterprise) contract compliance reviews" of Engineering Management Consultants, the consortium with an exclusive, ongoing MTA contract for design and engineering services, and other prime contractors. And at least one subcontractor is suing a prime contractor to collect.

Still, most subcontractors involved appear to be too small to wage legal battles or wait out the bureaucratic process.

"I'm not getting paid," said one subcontractor who recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but wished to remain anonymous. "I've got everybody coming after me for their payment. I can't pay."

Mike Bohlke, transportation deputy to L.A. County Supervisor and MTA board member Yvonne Burke, said his office has "dealt with this problem a variety of times."

"There is a strong consensus on the board that these subs need to be paid, but very little leeway to require the primes to pay the subs," said Bohlke. "It's been a recurring problem."

E. Leonard Fruchter, an attorney representing an unpaid MTA subcontractor, said he believes this pattern of so-called "sub-busting" occurs on the Metro Rail project because the small, minority-owned firms are "over their heads politically."

According to Fruchter, "sub-busting" is a term used in the contracting business to describe a policy of some prime contractors who avoid paying subcontractors on time by taking advantage of their naivete and small size and drowning them in red tape and keeping them in the dark about paperwork procedures.

MTA policies require that contractors portion out a percentage of their work to DBE subcontractors that are certified by the MTA as ethnic minority- or women-owned businesses. Knowledge of this, combined with the sheer size of the Metro Rail project and the money involved, has attracted a lot of DBEs that normally would never be involved in such a massive bureaucracy, Fruchter said.

"They don't know how to protect their rights," he said. "They don't know they've got to dot all their i's and cross their t's."

Herman Vargas, acting director of the MTA's DBE program, agreed that the naivete of some small subcontractors can contribute to the problem.

"Some primes help their DBEs. Some don't; they use the lack of proper paperwork as a pretext for not paying their bills. They'll say the sub didn't fill out a form," said Vargas. "These are big projects. It's a little more dog-eat-dog. Some contractors use DBEs that can't succeed to prove the program is bad (presumably so the MTA will consider eliminating it).

"Many contractors don't pay their subs until they pay a lot of other things. It happens a lot. We've argued with contractors about this before."

Vargas also noted that the number of firms applying for DBE certification with the MTA has dropped 50 percent, but he attributed that largely to a court ruling striking down the MTA's program as unconstitutional. The MTA continues to operate the program, having won a stay of the order while an appeal is adjudicated, but many people don't know that, he said.

"They think we have no program," said Vargas.

Meanwhile, several subcontractors that did get work on the Metro Rail project are now trying to hang on financially.

Kate Diamond, partner in West L.A.based Siegel Diamond Architects, said she is owed almost $70,000.

"We completed our work in April, and we haven't been paid in full yet," she said. "As a small firm, it's difficult to play bank to the MTA."

Siegel Diamond did design work on the Universal City Red Line station.

Another subcontractor, who wished to remain anonymous, said he is owed about $135,000 for a project. "We haven't made profits for two years because of this one job," the subcontractor said.

Fruchter's client, Howard Massey, owner of Massey Mechanical, said he has been owed $83,000 for a year and a half in connection with work on the Green Line.

"I put everything into this project," complained Massey. "I did everything in good faith and I'm getting screwed. This really did me in. My vendors and the IRS are after me now."

Vargas acknowledged that the MTA may "need to do greater outreach to our DBEs" so they understand all the ins and outs of the system.