USDOL Wage & Hour Division – 2017 Prevailing Wage Seminars

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Join us at a Prevailing Wage Seminar in your region in 2017!

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) Prevailing Wage Seminars (Prevailing Wage Seminars) are three-day compliance trainings designed for regional stakeholders (unions, private contractors, state agencies, federal agencies and workers). In these seminars, conference participants will learn about the following:

  • The Davis-Bacon Act and McNamara O’Hara Service Contract Act
  • Executive Order 13495 “Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers”
  • Executive Order 13658 “Establishing a Minimum Wage for Contractors”
  • The process of obtaining wage determinations and adding classifications
  • Compliance assistance and enforcement processes
  • The process for appealing wage rates, coverage, and compliance determinations

 

Prevailing Wage Seminars for 2017 are being scheduled in the following cities

  • Pittsburgh, PA – August 15-17, 2017

 

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Stand up for vets by rejecting prevailing wage repeal

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Josh Wallis
Published 7:23 p.m. CT April 15, 2017

Despite all the election year rhetoric about lifting wages and taking care of veterans, Missouri legislators are considering doing just the opposite by repealing our prevailing wage law.

A repeal of prevailing wage will hurt Missouri veterans, our economy and the construction industry. It won’t save money, either.

This is not hyperbole. It is literally what the research tells us.

Prevailing wage is a minimum wage for publicly funded skilled construction work. In fact, it is the local market rate, based on surveys that reflect what workers in different skilled trades actually earn in the community. Prevailing wage laws were enacted by Republicans more than 80 years ago to promote local hiring and quality workmanship. When it comes to tax dollars and our critical infrastructure, both of these virtues are important.

Construction skills are also vital to the work our military does in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our service men and women are trained for project leadership, maximizing productivity, and as members of teams that depend on efficiency. In addition to fighting, we also help rebuild schools, roads and bridges.

In fact, the military provides more than one in five registered apprenticeships in the U.S. today. So, not surprisingly, veterans are far more likely to pursue careers in the skilled construction trades than non-veterans. Prevailing wage standards actually increase these trends by making these occupations more than jobs – but genuine middle-class career pathways.

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Rep. Pocan: Repealing Wisconsin’s Prevailing Wage Laws Will Take Money Out of People’s Pockets

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State Senate proposal will do little to improve Wisconsin roads and could undercut wages throughout the state

Apr 25, 2017 – Press Release

MADISON – U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02) released the following statement after the Wisconsin state senate heard arguments on a bill to repeal the state’s prevailing wage laws.

“Once again, Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are putting corporate cash and the 1% ahead of working families. This bill to eliminate prevailing wage requirements for public projects will literally take money out of people’s pockets and could allow companies to bring low-wage workers from out of state, undercutting wages throughout our state.

“We also know this legislation will do little to improve Wisconsin’s roads, which are ranked as one of the worst in the country. I hope my former colleagues in the Wisconsin legislature see this for what it is, another boost for big business that winds up costing working Wisconsin families, and reject it.”

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Prevailing wage repeal: Hurting blue-collar wages or saving tax dollars?

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

MARK SOMMERHAUSER
Apr 25, 2017

Critics of a proposal to fully repeal the state’s prevailing wage laws decried it Monday as an assault on the wages of blue-collar workers, while proponents framed the move as frugal stewardship of public funds.

A state Senate panel gave the proposal its first legislative hearing Monday.

If enacted, it would mark another crushing defeat for Wisconsin labor unions. They, along with legislative Democrats, are among the staunchest backers of a prevailing wage, a minimum wage requirement for workers on public construction projects.

The bill would eliminate all state-imposed prevailing wage requirements for projects funded by the state. That includes state office buildings, University of Wisconsin System buildings and state highway projects.

…

Two who testified against the bill were Leroy Miller, a heavy equipment operator from New Berlin, and Luke Burnaman, a crane operator from Portage. Both are union members and U.S. military veterans.

Both men said they’re concerned about how prevailing wage repeal could affect veterans, who they and others who spoke Monday said are disproportionately represented in the building trades.

Burnaman said he and his family moved to Wisconsin from his native Louisiana last year, lured by the prospect of higher wages and better schools for his children.

He questioned why senators would mull prevailing wage changes after recently having increased their own expense reimbursements. State Senate leaders earlier this year approved a 31 percent increase in their daily per diem amount – up to $115 per day, compared to $88 per day last year, the Appleton Post-Crescent reported.

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Violation Tracker Expansion Adds 34,000 Wage Theft Cases

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Violation Tracker Expansion Adds 34,000 Wage Theft Cases; More Than 40 Agencies Now Combined in One Search Engine

 

Good Jobs First
4/18/2017

Washington, DC, April 18, 2017-Good Jobs First today announced a large new addition to Violation Tracker, the country’s first public database of corporate crime and misconduct: more than 34,000 cases brought by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor since the beginning of 2010 for violations of overtime, minimum wage and other provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The largest violators captured by the new data are oilfield services company Halliburton, which in 2015 agreed to an $18 million settlement of alleged overtime violations, and CoreCivic (the new name of private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America), which in 2014 agreed to an $8 million settlement.

Violation Tracker, a public service of Good Jobs First’s Corporate Research Project, is available at http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker.

“The DOL Wage and Hour dataset is the first phase of our work plan to provide comprehensive coverage of wage theft cases,” said Good Jobs First Research Director Philip Mattera, who leads the work on Violation Tracker. “We are also collecting information on private collective-action Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits.”

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Wage Violations Are Now “Public Record” Under Colorado’s New Wage Theft Transparency Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

The National Law Review
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

On April 13, 2017, Governor Hickenlooper signed the Wage Theft Transparency Act into law, which is effective immediately. The Act makes “wage theft” violations in Colorado, including nonpayment of wages or overtime compensation, public record and subject to records requests under the Colorado Open Records Act.

The Act clarifies that information obtained by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), relating to a finding by the CDLE that an employer violated Colorado’s wage laws, is not confidential and shall be released to the public or made available for use in a court proceeding, unless the director of the division makes a determination that the information includes specific information that is a trade secret.

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19th Annual NAFC Conference – Nashville, TN, Sept. 24 – 26, 2017

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

NAFC will be holding its next Annual Conference in 2017 in Music City U.S.A., Nashville, Tennessee. The Conference will be held at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel, in the heart of the city. NAFC’s National Conference is attended by several hundred participants from across the nation, including representatives from labor organizations, fair contractors, fair contracting compliance organizations as well as researchers, academics, attorneys and officials from federal, state and local governments. Stay tuned for further details and registration information coming in early 2017.

(View NAFC Conference Page)

USDOL Wage & Hour Division Announces 2017 Prevailing Wage Seminars

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Join us at a Prevailing Wage Seminar in your region in 2017!

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) Prevailing Wage Seminars (Prevailing Wage Seminars) are three-day compliance trainings designed for regional stakeholders (unions, private contractors, state agencies, federal agencies and workers). In these seminars, conference participants will learn about the following:

  • The Davis-Bacon Act and McNamara O’Hara Service Contract Act
  • Executive Order 13495 “Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers”
  • Executive Order 13658 “Establishing a Minimum Wage for Contractors”
  • The process of obtaining wage determinations and adding classifications
  • Compliance assistance and enforcement processes
  • The process for appealing wage rates, coverage, and compliance determinations

 

Prevailing Wage Seminars for 2017 are being scheduled in the following cities:

  • Pittsburgh, PA – TBD

 

(Read More)

Total netted from state’s misclassification fight exceeds $1.1 million

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By: Dan Shaw, dan.shaw@dailyreporter.com
March 15, 2017 4:54 pm

State officials’ efforts to crack down on companies that misclassify direct employees as independent contractors has generated more than $1 million for the state’s unemployment-benefits system over the past few years.

The state began stepping up its enforcement of misclassification laws several years ago. Since then, those efforts have recovered nearly $1.13 million worth of in unpaid unemployment-insurance taxes, penalties and interest, according to a report on the state’s unemployment fund released by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development on Wednesday.

Worker misclassification is believed to be particularly rampant in the construction industry, where frequent seasonal layoffs can blur the line between a permanent employee and someone hired for a particular job. Industry officials say deliberate misclassification not only deprives the state of unemployment taxes and other resources; it also gives dishonest companies an advantage by enabling them to avoid the sort of costs that their more scrupulous rivals often end up rolling into bid prices.

The state reported Wednesday that auditors found 8,613 misclassified workers at Wisconsin companies last year. The same year saw tipsters use a state-run website to report 59 instances of suspected misclassification.

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