Pritzker signs ban on local government ‘right-to-work’ laws (IL)

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By Peter Hancock – Capitol News Illinois
04/12/2019, 04:52pm

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday signed into law a bill that prohibits local governments from enacting so-called “right-to-work” laws that are aimed at weakening the power of labor unions.

“The Collective Bargaining Freedom Act makes it abundantly clear that we have turned the page here in Illinois,” Pritzker said during a bill-signing ceremony in his statehouse office. “From the start, right-to-work was an idea cooked up to lower wages, slash benefits and hurt our working families. Right-to-work has always meant right to work for less money, and it’s wrong for Illinois.”

The first right-to-work laws in the United States were enacted in the 1940s, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when soldiers were returning home and the U.S. economy was shifting from war production to civilian manufacturing.

Marc Dixon, a sociologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said during an August 2018 interview that different arguments have been used over the years to campaign for the laws.

The first states to adopt them were primarily in the South, he said, where the laws were used to weaken labor unions, especially the Congress of International Organizations, or CIO, which were actively supporting civil rights legislation for African-Americans.

Later, in the 1950s, he said, they were supported by people who claimed certain labor unions embraced communist sympathies or had ties to organized crime.

More recently, supporters have argued for right-to-work laws on the basis of free speech. As more and more blue-collar workers aligned with the Republican Party, supporters have argued that workers should not be forced to join unions that, broadly speaking, tend to support Democrats.

The bill that Pritzker signed Friday came in response to a local ordinance adopted in north suburban Lincolnshire in 2015. It provided that workers could not be compelled to join a labor organization as a condition of employment within the village.

A U.S. District Court judge struck down that law in 2017, ruling that federal law allows only states to regulate collective bargaining. And in March 2018, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. But other federal circuits have ruled that local governments may enact local right-to-work laws, making the issue ripe for a U.S. Supreme Court review.

Asked about that during the bill-signing, Pritzker said he is confident the new Illinois law would be upheld.

“The law as it is does not allow a state to hand this responsibility down to local communities,” he said. “This bill actually just establishes what is the law today, so I believe that that would be moot, essentially, at the Supreme Court.”

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In Illinois, GCs could be on the hook for subs’ unpaid wages (IL)

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AUTHOR – Kim Slowey
PUBLISHED – April 2, 2019

Dive Brief:

  • The Illinois House of Representatives this month passed an amendment to the state’s Wage Payment and Collection Act that could make general contractors responsible for the wages of their subcontractors’ employees. The state Senate will now take up the bill.
  • The liability for a subcontractor’s unpaid wages would lie with the direct contractor – the company in contract with the owner – even if the direct contractor has paid the subcontractor in full.
  • The law as proposed would also apply to lower-tier subcontractors and cover fringe and benefit payments owed to third parties on behalf of employees. Just as in most other civil actions, the direct contractor’s property could be seized in order to raise the money necessary to pay back wages and benefits.

Dive Insight:

In addition to wages and benefits, the direct contractor would be responsible for interest on those payments, but not fines and penalties. The proposed regulation would give direct contractors the right to examine the records of subcontractors and lower-tier subcontractors in the course of the project to ensure that they are paying their employees.

…

Such legislation can give state officials extra teeth in pursuing payment for those workers left in the lurch by unscrupulous contractors. In California, where GC’s liability for subs’ unpaid wages was enacted for contracts signed on or after Jan. 1, 2018, officials have been aggressive in addressing wage theft violations.

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Associated Builders and Contractors, Eastern PA Chapter, Inc. et al v. County of Northampton

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“Four municipalities recently passed responsible contractor ordinances which specify certain criteria that a contractor must satisfy to be eligible to perform work valued over a certain monetary threshold for those municipalities. … the ordinances’ require… that all bidders on qualifying public works projects participate in a so-called “Class A Apprenticeship Program” … expense of their nonunion competitors and taxpayers. The plaintiffs … arguing that the apprenticeship-program-participation requirement is not rationally related to any legitimate government purpose.

…

…the court agrees with the defendants that ERISA does not preempt the ordinances because they do not “refer to” or have a “connection with” ERISA-covered plans … and even if they did, the market participant exception would preclude preemption here.

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Infrastructure Investment Must Create Good Jobs for All

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Center for American Progress
April 22, 2019 at 9:03 AM

Advancing a large-scale plan to rebuild America’s crumbling roads and bridges is at the top of many federal lawmakers’ 2019 agenda…

Equally important, lawmakers must ensure that any major infrastructure investment also helps secure the nation’s long-term prosperity. This means that the jobs supported by the plan must pay fair wages, provide good benefits and a voice on the job, and offer American workers from all walks of life a pathway to the middle class.

Over the past century, pro-worker lawmakers have sought to uphold the basic guarantee that government spending will create good jobs. This has been accomplished through a variety of measures-such as prevailing-wage and benefits laws that ensure workers receive fair compensation, as well as protections to prevent discrimination, support equal pay, and ensure that workers are able to exercise their right to form unions. Yet it is far from guaranteed that the jobs created through the infrastructure plan will be good ones.

…

Without adequate job quality protections, jobs funded through any new infrastructure investments could be of low quality, pay substandard wages, provide too few opportunities for advancement-particularly for women, people of color, and other historically disadvantaged communities-and do little to correct the decades long problem of stagnating U.S. wages.

Weak job standards not only harm American workers but also put responsible businesses that pay fair wages and respect employees at a competitive disadvantage. Moreover, research finds that when corporations receiving government contracts pay poverty wages or violate workplace laws, they often deliver poor-quality products to taxpayers and require taxpayers to bear hidden costs through federal and state governments’ provision of services to supplement workers’ incomes, such as Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and refundable tax credits.

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Opinion: Union membership fixes wage disparity

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Ron Bieber
Published 11:00 p.m. ET
April 9, 2019

The disparity in the wage gap between CEOs and working people continues to grow to obscene levels in our country. It wasn’t always this way. In 1965, the gap between CEO and workers’ pay was 20 to 1. However, this ratio exploded in the decades that followed, climbing to a 343-to-1 ratio by the year 2000. It has remained above the 300-to-1 level since then.

If you happen to be a working woman, the wage disparity is even worse.

Last week marked Equal Pay Day. This annual observance was started to raise public awareness of the pay gap between men and women. It is commemorated on the date that symbolizes how far into the current year a woman has to work in order to earn what a man earned in the previous year.

All working people in this country deserve a raise, but if you are a working woman, the need is that much greater. The best answer to address this inequality is to have strong, vibrant unions to allow workers the freedom to collectively bargain for better working conditions.

Inequality in any manner is wrong, but to address women’s workplace inequality, Susan B. Anthony said it best over 100 years ago when she said “Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.”

The labor movement built America’s middle class. When working men and women exercised their freedom to join in union, they demanded a fair return for their work and better working conditions. It’s no coincidence that as unions have been under attack in recent years by elected officials and corporate special interests, the middle class has been shrinking, and wages for working people have been stagnant.

This erosion of worker’s collective voice has been used to manipulate the economic rules to benefit the wealthiest 1% and CEOs, hence the growing disparity between CEO and workers’ pay.

Union workers also benefit from the nondiscrimination policies unions fight for in our collective bargaining contracts to protect all working people.

(Read More)

Prevailing wage law passed after Alabama workers built Northport VA

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By James T. Madore
Updated May 3, 2019 6:00 AM

The Northport VA Medical Center gave rise to the federal law stipulating that the prevailing wage be paid on federal building projects, according to historians and federal records.

The use of an out-of-state contractor and workers to construct the local hospital in the 1920s led Rep. Robert L. Bacon (R-Westbury) to propose what became the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. The act is still in force, though it has been amended through the years. The hospital was in Bacon’s district.

Speaking at a 1927 congressional hearing, Bacon said several New York State contractors were outbid for the hospital’s construction because they included the state’s prevailing wage in their bids, which the successful bidder, from Alabama, had not done.

The out-of-state contractor “brought some thousand nonunion laborers from Alabama,” Bacon said. “They were herded onto this job, they were housed in shacks, they were paid a very low wage.”

He continued: “It seemed to me that the federal government should not engage in construction work in any state and undermine the labor conditions and the labor wages paid in that state. …The least the federal government can do is comply with the local standards of wages.”

Bacon’s bill languished until it was sponsored in the Senate by John Davis (R-Pennsylvania), a former labor secretary under three presidents, including Herbert Hoover. The bill was signed into law by Hoover in 1931.

More recently, opponents of the prevailing wage, such as columnist George F. Will, have asserted Bacon was upset because some of the workers on the Northport hospital’s construction were black. But neither he nor Davis spoke of race in the period leading up to the legislation’s overwhelming adoption, according to congressional records.

“For Bacon, the issue was not race,” economists Hamid Azari-Rad and Peter Philips said in “The Economics of Prevailing Wage Laws” (Ashgate, 2005). “The issue was that both black and white workers from Alabama were being paid very much less than the wage scale prevailing in New York.”

The original hospital buildings are no longer in use and will be demolished next year, a VA spokesman said.

(See Article)

Mail haulers in Alabama owed $329,057 in back pay (AL)

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Posted Apr 22, 5:03 PM
By Leada Gore

A Florida-based contractor will pay back wages and benefits to postal delivery personnel in Montgomery.

The payment comes after an investigation into St. Augustine, Florida-based Postal Fleet Services Inc. by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Postal Fleet Services will pay $329,057 in back wages and benefits to 53 employees for violations of requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act, the labor department said.

“No federal contractor should gain an economic advantage by paying employees below the prevailing wages and fringe benefits their contract requires,” said Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Juan Coria. “Federal service contracts spell out employers’ responsibilities when they bid on these jobs. Violations like these can be avoided.”

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County Supervisors Direct Staff to Develop Community Workforce Agreement for Construction Projects (CA)

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By Giana Magnoli
April 10, 2019 | 9:54 p.m.

Contractors from all over Santa Barbara County commented during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting on a proposal to develop a community workforce agreement ordinance, which would affect contracts for some government projects.

A community workforce agreement, also called a project labor agreement, is negotiated between public agencies and construction trade unions “with the goal of providing a stable, skilled workforce and high quality standards on publicly funded projects,” said county supervisors Joan Hartmann and Das Williams, who pitched the idea to their colleagues.

The supervisors voted 3-2 to direct staff to develop a community workforce agreement ordinance and come back with details at a later date….

The project labor agreement would have a “targeted hire provision” aimed at getting people from “disadvantaged communities” – low-income workers, veterans and others – into construction through apprenticeship training programs, according to the board letter from Hartmann and Williams.

Michael Lopez, of the Santa Barbara Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 114, said the Community Workforce Agreement would boost the efforts of apprenticeships and trained workers.

“This is how we want to take care of our local people,” Lopez said.

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San Diego airport officials vote to use PLA on $3B airport project (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

AUTHOR – Kim Slowey
PUBLISHED – April 8, 2019

Dive Brief:

  • Board members of the San Diego County (California) Regional Airport Authority have voted to require that the design-build contractor chosen to lead the $3 billion redevelopment of San Diego International Airport must enter into project labor agreements with local unions.
  • The regulation requiring the PLAs, according to a staff-prepared report, “ensures labor harmony by eliminating the threat of work stoppages, strikes, slowdowns, and lockouts for the life of the project,” which, airport staff said, is a critical element for keeping the five-year project on schedule.

…

Dive Insight:

Also included in the staff report to the authority was the fact that California state law allows a public agency to require a PLA. Lawmakers in many other states, however, don’t. Last month, Kentucky became the 25th state to enact anti-PLA regulations mandated by state and local government agencies. Kentucky’s new law keeps its public agencies from requiring that bidders sign on to PLAs, although it does not ban the agreements altogether nor does it prevent contractors from entering into voluntary PLAs.

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Opinion: Criminalizing wage theft is only one step in the right direction (CO)

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APR 29, 2019 4:05AM MDT
Rebecca Galemba

A day worked is a day paid,” a day laborer in Lakewood, Colorado stated. But according to the Colorado Fiscal Institute (CFI), this is not the case for many Colorado workers. Each year, half a million Coloradans suffer from wage theft, amounting to $750 million a year, in addition to the associated $25 million to $47 million in lost state tax revenue and potential public services.

Wage theft refers to the denial of earned wages and benefits protected under state and federal labor laws. The CFI numbers are likely vast under-estimates due to underreporting and pervasive worker misclassification.

New legislation, like Colorado House Bill 1267, would recognize wage theft for the insidious, and often intentional, crime it is. This legislation would treat wage theft as “theft” so that the intentional withholding of wages over $2,000 would be considered a felony.

When employers get away with cheating their workers, it not only harms Colorado’s most vulnerable people, but also undermines wages and working conditions for all workers and creates unfair business advantages for unscrupulous employers. When penalties are low or not applied, committing wage theft is relatively low-risk, profitable, and normal.

Recognizing the crime of wage theft is a step forward in mitigating this unfair business practice. House Bill 1267 can pave the way for more proactive policies to target routine violators, ramp up public enforcement, enhance retaliation protections, monitor industries with pervasive violations and create partnerships to assist workers who may lack the ability to come forward in a claims-driven enforcement environment.

In Colorado, the construction sector accounts for the largest share of violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act; it is estimated that a third of workers in construction may be misclassified, leading employers to avoid obligations to their workers as well as payroll taxes. In my research survey of over 400 day laborers, we found that 62% of workers surveyed had experienced wage theft, but that only half ever pursued their unpaid wages.

Fewer than 40% asked for assistance even though an amendment to the Colorado Wage Claims Act, which went into effect in 2015, authorized the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s Division of Labor Standards and Statistics to adjudicate wage claims and levy fines and penalties to deter bad behavior regardless of a worker’s legal status.

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