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Prevailing-wage bill would uplift construction workers of color (NY)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

April 30, 2019 12:00 AM
Barrie Smith

All construction workers in New York-union or nonunion, male or female, black or white-deserve the right to a fair wage for their hard work.

That’s why all New York construction workers critically need prevailing wage legislation. A loophole in the current definition of public works allows bad-actor contractors to receive millions in taxpayer subsidies for projects while paying workers poverty-level wages.

Despite the universal applicability of this legislation to construction workers, a misinformed narrative that prevailing-wage legislation would negatively impact people of color by favoring union labor somehow persists-often perpetuated by white, nonunion workers. This argument shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how to best serve the interest of people of color, a complete lack of knowledge regarding the increasingly positive role of the building trades in the effort for civil rights in New York, and, frankly, a rudimentary understanding of the bill itself.

Lack of diversity in the building trades is a thing of the past. The social justice community accepts this as fact. The truth is that today, people of color benefit from greater opportunity for higher wages and benefits, a lower racial wage gap and less wage discrimination than in nonunion construction.

The numbers clearly back this up. A 2017 report by the Economic Policy Institute, Diversity in the New York City Union and Nonunion Construction Sectors, showed that more than half of unionized construction workers are people of color. Black workers in particular have a 5% higher share of employment than in the nonunion sector.

And not only are there more jobs for people of color in unions, but the jobs are better. Black workers earn 36.1% more per hour than those in the nonunion sector. Hispanic workers earn $8 more per hour.

(Read More)

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ATTORNEY GENERAL’S LEGISLATION STRENGTHENING WAGE THEFT LAWS AND INCREASING PENALTIES PASSES LEGISLATURE WITH BIPARTISAN SUPPORT (WA)

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By Washington State Office of the Attorney General
Apr 19th, 2019

OLYMPIA – The Legislature passed Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s agency request legislation strengthening Washington’s wage theft laws in the prevailing wage arena. Prevailing wage is most common in government contracts. Prevailing wage laws prevent a “race to the bottom” as contractors seek to lower worker pay in order to underbid each other.

The bill, SB 5035, increases the maximum penalty for prevailing wage violations from one thousand dollars or 20 percent of the violation, whichever is greater, to five thousand dollars or 50 percent of the violation, whichever is greater. These penalties have not increased since 1985.

Ferguson’s legislation also closes a major loophole in Washington’s prevailing wage laws that allows repeat and willful violators to avoid a penalty or sanction if they respond to a wage complaint by returning the stolen pay to the worker before the state can take additional legal action. This loophole derives from the state’s limited authority to file enforcement actions when there are “unpaid wages” – a term that was undefined before now.

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“This bill ensures that employers who cheat their workers out of hard-earned pay will face consequences, the same as you or I would face if we stole something,” said Ferguson. “Allowing the state to pursue penalties against employers that intentionally rip off their workers protects hardworking Washingtonians and their families.”

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The Washington Building Trades, Faith Action Network and Working Washington also supported SB 5035.

(Read More)

Women Wanted: Blue-Collar Fields Find New Workforce (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

The share of truck drivers, electricians, plumbers and mechanics who are women recently touched the highest level in at least 25 years

By Sarah Chaney and Eric Morath
April 29, 2019 5:30 a.m. ET

Kenyette Godhigh-Bell dismissed any thought of becoming a truck driver years ago when it appeared too daunting to break into a job where more than 90% of workers are men.

“You’ve got this cowboy-boot wearing, cigarette-smoking, tattooed or whatever white guy’s job,” she recalled. Now Ms. Godhigh-Bell, a 46-year-old black woman in sleek high-heeled boots, regularly pulls her 18-wheeler to Nebraska slaughterhouses so she can pick up beef and chicken for transport to grocery warehouses.

She is among a growing number of women taking jobs in blue-collar roles that have long been-and still are-mostly men, including police officers, construction laborers and electricians. A number of factors are driving the trend, including companies broadening recruiting efforts in a tight labor market to workers being drawn by better-paying jobs to women recognizing they won’t be alone.

The increase has been especially pronounced in transportation and material-moving, a field that includes truck drivers, delivery people and warehouse workers. In 2018, 43% more women worked in that category than in 2000, according to the Labor Department, and those gains accelerated the past five years as the labor market tightened. The overall number of women in the workforce increased about 15% during that time.

The number of women working as security guards, police officers and other protective service jobs also rose more than 40% since 2000. Women working construction jobs has increased 23%.

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Women are increasingly being drawn into blue-collar jobs because the pool of men willing to take those jobs is shrinking, said Gad Levanon, chief economist at The Conference Board. More Americans are pursuing college degrees, leaving fewer willing to take traditional blue-collar jobs.

“That makes recruiting extremely difficult,” he said, adding that companies in blue-collar industries need to go beyond the typical pool of candidates. “Women, in many cases, turn out to be one of those groups.”

The rise of women in majority-male jobs reflects recent labor-force trends: Women have been driving the comeback in working-age labor-force participation, while participation among men ages 25 to 54-long the stalwarts of blue-collar jobs-has lagged behind.

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(Official Page for the 9th Annual National Trades Women Conference)

Opinion: California must invest in workforce to meet housing goals (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Construction workers are repelled by the sector’s physically demanding work and comparatively low pay

By SCOTT LITTLEHALE
PUBLISHED: April 14, 2019 at 6:10 am

Burdensome regulations and exclusionary zoning are not the only barriers to solving California’s persistent housing crisis.

Even under the rosiest of regulatory scenarios, California’s residential construction industry needs at least 200,000 new workers to produce enough new housing to improve affordability.

But it is struggling to compete for them. Industry leaders often claim it’s because “Young people don’t want to get their hands dirty;” “Parents are pushing college instead of vocational training;” or because “Schools have abandoned shop classes.”

Actually, research shows that the seeds for today’s housing construction labor shortage were planted by the homebuilding industry itself – more than three decades ago.

The last time California produced housing on a scale that state leaders say is needed to boost affordability today was the 1970s. During those years, residential and non-residential construction wage rates were equal. Builders routinely employed apprentices and made binding commitments – often through collective bargaining – to fund skilled trade apprenticeship programs.

During the 1980s, homebuilders refused to renew collective bargaining agreements and began replacing higher skilled crews with lower skilled workers. As land and regulatory costs grew, contractors relied on a strong supply of young men without a college degree and a growing pool of immigrant laborers to offset these burdens by working for less.

Construction labor productivity began to shrink alongside these shifts, but it has taken decades for annual deficits in housing supply to reach a crisis point. Today, we need to double our housing production just to tread water. To boost affordability, we need to produce even more. Either scenario demands more workers.

(Read More)

Lujan Grisham signs bill invalidating counties’ right-to-work laws (NM)

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Author: Andy Lyman
March 29th, 2019

Supporters of right-to-work legislation in New Mexico were dealt a big blow Wednesday when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a bill to prohibit counties from passing their own right-to-work laws.

Compulsory union fees in the public sector was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2018, but private sector unions can still require workers to pay union fees. It’s against the law for all unions to require workers to pay dues, but they can collect fees to pay for the wage and benefit bargaining.

With the governor’s signature, House Bill 85-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Daymon Ely of Albuquerque and Andrea Romero of Santa Fe-invalidates resolutions passed, over a span of about 14 months in 10 New Mexico counties and one village, that barred union membership as a condition of employment.

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The bill was a direct answer to a push by right-leaning organizations, led by Americans for Prosperity, to localize efforts that failed to pass the Legislature in 2015. That year, with a majority in the House, Republicans passed a bill that would have made it illegal for employers or labor unions to require workers to join a union as part of the job. That bill never made it past the Democratically controlled Senate.

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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.”

(Read More)

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

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

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.

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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.

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…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.

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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.

(Read More)

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Opinion: Union membership fixes wage disparity

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

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)