REGISTRATION IS NOW AVAILABLE – 2019 NAFC National Conference, September 22-24, 2019 – Boston, MA

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

June 2019

It is time to register for this year’s 2019 NAFC National Conference to be held on September 22 – 24, 2019, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel in the heart of downtown Boston, Massachusetts. NAFC’s National Conference is attended by several hundred participants from across the nation, including representatives from labor organizations, responsible contractors, fair contracting compliance organizations as well as researchers, academics, attorneys and officials from federal, state and local governments.

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW FORMAT FOR THE 2019 NAFC NATIONAL CONFERENCE – AND REVIEW THE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS BEFORE MAKING YOUR TRAVEL RESERVATIONS

The 2019 NAFC Conference has been extended. We have added additional workshops on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 22nd – the day of arrival) and extended the Conference to include a full day session on Tuesday (Sept. 24th – the final day). Please review the Schedule of Events drop-down menu to ensure that your travel reservations allow you to attend the complete lineup of plenary speakers, panels, workshops and networking opportunities. In addition, please use the Registration & Hotel Reservation drop-down menu to register for the Conference and reserve your hotel. Conference registration and hotel reservations must be made online through NAFC’s 2019 Conference website. Paper Conference registrations and hotel reservations will not be available this year.

The 2019 NAFC National Conference will be the largest and most successful Conference to date. NAFC President Rocco Davis, the Board of Directors and staff have put together a lineup of dynamic speakers and comprehensive workshops to assist you in leveling the playing field in publicly funded construction and promoting responsible and efficient construction at the local, state and federal levels. National experts on construction industry issues will present the latest research and programs which promote the high road construction market, joint apprenticeship plans and pathways for underserved communities and veterans in the construction industry. Leading fair contracting practitioners will describe innovative tools and strategies to ensure enforcement and compliance with the wide variety of laws which regulate public construction, including prevailing wage laws.

Stay tuned for further details and contact NAFC’s Administrator with any questions you may have.

(Conference Details & Registration)

*Disclaimer: Registration fees will be refunded upon cancellation if notice is provided to NAFC by September 6, 2019. Participation in the NAFC Conference is subject to the approval of NAFC’s Board of Directors.

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Labor says study proves ending prevailing wage was a mistake (WV)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By MetroNews
May 21, 2019 at 2:07 PM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The organization which represents skilled tradesmen in West Virginia believes a new study out of the University of Missouri-Kansas City is clear evidence the removal of the prevailing wage requirement in West Virginia was a mistake.

The Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation released the findings from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute which examined West Virginia’s state funded construction costs three years after the legislature eliminated a requirement for payment of a prevailing wage on state funded construction jobs.

“The report finds there has been no savings,” said ACT Foundation Executive Director Steve White on MetroNews Talkline. “This experiment to bring savings has failed.”

Supporters of the removal of the prevailing wage requirement claimed the action would enable to the state to enjoy enough savings to build five new schools for the cost of three. White said the data from the study found quite the opposite. He said the study found no savings to taxpayers, despite diminished wages for the laborers on the job.

“Building four schools for the price of three or five for the price of three would be a 25 percent savings,” White said. “It’s totally untrue.”

White said many of their members have lost not only wages, but also lost benefits because of the provision’s removal.

“When you compare it to surrounding states, they’ve lost even more,” he said. “The folks in surrounding states that have prevailing wage have seen modest increases. You’ve seen huge cuts in wages and benefits.”

White and his organization plan to use the data to build their case for the legislature to reinstate the prevailing wage law in the next legislative session. White said the provision has done more harm than good, despite what it was touted to have been in the beginning.

“We want good paying jobs and we want people to have good benefits,” he said. “There’s also cost to the taxpayer when people are not paid and not productive and don’t have those benefits.”

(Read More)

(See PDF of Study)

 

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New West Virginia study finds repeal of prevailing wage saved taxpayers no money (WV)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

by Jake Jarvis
May 21, 2019

CHARLESTON – Officials with the West Virginia State Building Trades Council and Affiliated Construction Trades say lawmakers should consider reinstating the prevailing wage law in light of a new study.

The study, published this month by a researcher from Missouri University and the Midwest Policy Institute, found that repeal of the prevailing wage law “had negative impacts for West Virginia’s construction workers, contractors and communities while failing to deliver any meaningful cost savings.”

Steve White, director of the ACT, said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon that the promised results of repealing the prevailing wage law have not been realized.

The law required that workers on state-funded construction projects be paid a so-called prevailing wage, which was calculated by state officials after determining the usual pay rate on such projects in West Virginia.

Proponents of repealing the 1933 law said it would reduce construction costs, but opponents said repealing it would allow out-of-state companies to come to West Virginia and undercut companies here by bidding far below them.

Luther Lasure, director of the Kanawha Valley Builders Association, said that’s exactly what happened.

He said there have been more out-of-state contractors winning bids for state-funded projects. And he said said those out-of-state companies don’t have as much of an incentive to do quality work, since they don’t actually live in the community.

Lasure said that, as uncomfortable as it is to admit it in a press conference full of union officials and supporters, he’s a member of the Republican Party, the party that repealed the prevailing wage. Despite this, he said he believes in listening to the data and the data shows the repeal has hurt workers.

“The taxpayers are not saving any money, but wages have been cut dramatically,” White said.

White called on legislative leaders to “correct course” and reverse the “terrible mistake” they enacted with repealing prevailing wage in 2015.

(Read More)

A Massive Win For Building Trades Workers As Prevailing Wage Law Passes Legislature (NH)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

5-3-19
Posted by NH Labor News

The House of Representatives voted 213-140 yesterday to pass SB 271, which would require prevailing wages on state-funded public works projects.

“All workers employed by or on behalf of any contractor, subcontractor, or hiring agent engaged in the construction of public works for the state of New Hampshire or any agency, officer, board, commission, or authorized agent of the state shall be paid a wage of not less than the minimum prevailing hourly rate of wages and benefits for work of a similar character in the county in which the work is performed.”

This new law would ensure that workers are paid fairly for the work they are doing and mandates payroll requirements to ensure that workers are being paid properly. Along with ensuring proper payments to workers the bill provides protections for the state agencies to withhold payment for contractors who fail to meet the prevailing wage requirement and bars them from future contracts.

Representative Brian Sullivan (D-Grantham), Chair of the House Labor Committee, released the following statement:

“Reestablishing a prevailing wage law in New Hampshire will ensure that construction workers receive fair wages on jobs funded by New Hampshire tax dollars. Prevailing wage standards assure that state construction projects are awarded to contractors that produce efficient, high quality work, and help keep local tax dollars in the state, going to local workers and local companies. It is past time that New Hampshire joins its New England neighbors in enacting this common sense policy, which assures competitive wages are paid on taxpayer-funded projects.”

Senator Feltes (D-Concord), the prime sponsor of SB 271, released the following statement after the vote:

“Prevailing wage laws ensure that construction workers receive fair wages and help keep New Hampshire taxpayer dollars going to local workers and local companies. It’s great to see the Senate take the first step to make tax dollars work for New Hampshire working families by joining our New England neighbors to enact this common sense policy.”

(Read More)

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USDOL Wage and Hour Division to Host Prevailing Wage Seminars

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
May 2019

 

Our 2019 seminars will be held in the following locations:
  • Austin, TX, June 18th – 20th: Register Here
  • Anchorage, AK, June 25th – 27th: Register Here
  • Sacramento, CA, July 23rd – 25th
  • Washington, DC, August 13th – 15th
  • Indianapolis, IN, August 27th – 29th
Please note these locations may change.
If you would like to receive email updates about our seminars, please sign up for our mailing list here. (In the category “Wage and Hour” select “WHD – Prevailing Wage Seminar Announcements”)
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 2018 were held in the following cities:
  • Jacksonville, FL – April 10-12th, 2018
  • San Diego, CA – May 22-24th, 2018
  • Kansas City, MO – June 12-14th, 2018
  • Hato Rey, Puerto Rico – August 27-28th, 2018
If you have any questions please email WHD-PWS@dol.gov
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My Turn: The conservative case for a prevailing wage (NH)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By TROY MERNER
Published: 5/8/2019 12:10:20 AM

There’s an old saying that the best social welfare program is a “good-paying job with excellent benefits,” and I couldn’t possibly agree more. While most elected officials agree with this idea in principle, we often disagree on the best path forward. New Hampshire has some of the best-trained and hardest workers in the country, and it’s high time we treated them accordingly. This is why I’m asking my fellow Republicans to support Senate Bill 271 and finally establish a prevailing wage in New Hampshire.

Prevailing wage law states that contractors must offer competitive wages and benefits on taxpayer-funded projects. This accomplishes two things: First, it ensures that public projects enjoy a quality of workmanship that cut-rate contractors cannot provide, saving taxpayers millions of dollars over the long term. Second, it affords locally trained New Hampshire workers the ability to work close to home. Many of our best-trained workers are forced to seek employment in neighboring states where prevailing wage ensures that pay is higher, while local construction jobs go to out-of-state contractors offering a lower quality of service.

A recent study by economists at the Keystone Research Center, a nonpartisan economic policy organization, concluded that establishing a prevailing wage in New Hampshire would add up to 4,000 local jobs to our economy because it would diminish out-of-state contractors’ ability to undercut our local workforce. This law would also provide health coverage to approximately 2,500 construction workers – reducing the number of our hard-working men and women who rely on the government for assistance. The same study concluded that passing a prevailing wage would increase economic activity by $680 million in New Hampshire and raise up to $17 million in new state and local tax revenue.

Passing a prevailing wage also establishes an enforcement protocol to ensure that contractors don’t miscategorize workers or hire undocumented workers to artificially lower their bids. This malicious practice both undercuts our local workforce and provides a lower quality of service on taxpayer-funded projects.

…

(Troy Merner, a Lancaster Republican, represents Coos District 7 in the N.H. House of Representatives.)

(Read More)

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Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak signs bill restoring prevailing wages (NV)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

May 28, 2019
Geoff Dornan

Gov. Steve Sisolak on Tuesday signed legislation repealing changes made by the Republican dominated 2015 Legislature that weakened Nevada’s prevailing wage laws.

The GOP raised the threshold for projects to require contractors pay prevailing wage from $100,000 to $250,000. They also directed the Labor Commissioner to set prevailing wages for public school and higher education construction projects at 90 percent of what would be required for other public works projects.

AB136 repeals both of those changes, restoring the law to what it was before 2015.
In addition, he signed SB231 which repealed language basically prohibiting contractors and subcontractors from entering into or adhering to any agreement with labor organizations when working on public projects. SB231 eliminates language that strongly discouraged public bodies from hiring contractors who have agreements with unions and prohibits public bodies from awarding grants, tax abatements credits or exemptions to contractors that enter agreements with labor organizations.

Sisolak said he was keeping his campaign promise to “return prevailing wage to public construction projects.”

He said that will help guarantee public construction projects are built by highly qualified workers and increase competition among those contractors.

(Read More)

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Games Contractors and Subs Play – Thinking about Playing the Wage Theft Game? Think Again

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

by Jim Kollaer | May 23, 2019

We have posted in the past about the Wage Theft Game and how rampant it is in construction around the globe. Globally, this game is played through the use of forced labor, conscripted labor, labor trafficking and a variety of other less than honest methods. Government officials in some second and third tier countries around the globe take bribes, kick-backs, endorse nepotism, make deals with the cartels and generally use a variety of illegal and underhanded methods to get projects built. Those projects range in size from major infrastructure projects such as bridges, dams, highways to palaces, second homes, schools and individual homes.

So, it is no wonder that many Contractors and Subs have either borrowed or brought with them the methods of the Wage Theft Game to the construction industry in the United States. Owners and investors may or may not know that these games are being played on their projects and we thought that we would reiterate some of the ways that Wage Theft games are being played on projects in your local market so that you would recognize it when you see it being played.

There are generally four variants of the Wage Theft Game that we see in our markets and that are defined in a recent article in Construction Dive. Those include non-payment, underpayment, misclassification and unauthorized deductions. Let’s take a quick look at each of them to see what they look like.

Non-payment – This one is relatively straightforward. Workers or subs do the work and the contractor or owner refuses to pay for that work. In today’s marketplace where we are seeing tight labor markets, contractors and subs are getting away with it as the result of the wider use of illegal workers – workers who have no recourse when a sub or contractor withholds paychecks and tells the illegal workers that if they complain that the Contractor will call ICE on them and their families and see that they are sent back to their home countries.

Underpayment – Many contractors and subs underpay their workers by using the “sub-sub” method where the prime sub gets a project for a specific bid or negotiated price and then subs the work to another work crew for a lower price and tells that crew that, ” I only have X dollars in this job and you can have it if you take it for that price.” The crew and the craft workers get shorted either by hourly rates or by flat rates for the project while the prime makes profit on the spread.

(Read More)

New Jersey Senate Bill A4897

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Permits … 50 year local public contracts for certain capital improvements and extends prevailing wage requirements to certain work performed under those contracts.

Second, contracts for the provision or performance of goods and services that require: (i) a total capital expenditure of more than $300,000, including expenditures by the lessee; or (ii) a capital improvement that has a life expectancy upon completion greater than 20 years, may be for a period of up to 50 years. The chief financial officer of the local government unit, however, is required to certify that the capital expenditure or capital improvement requirement is satisfied. The prevailing wage would have to be paid for any construction project under these capital improvement contracts.

(Read More)

(Copy of Bill)

New Jersey Senate Bill 368

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Authorizes political subdivisions to set aside 0.5 percent of public works funds to recruit and train women and minorities and promote local hiring.

A political subdivision may elect, but is not required, to transfer to the department or retain, for any one or more of the purposes indicated in subsection b. of this section or for the purpose of providing incentives or otherwise facilitating a local hiring and employment program, an amount equal to one half of one percent (0.5%) of the portion of any public work contract of the political subdivision.

(Read More)

(Copy of Bill)