Prevailing Wage States Have Fewer Job Separations in Construction

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Feb 29
Posted by Frank Manzo IV

Labor economists have explained that lower job turnover is one of the reasons why raising the minimum wage has very little impact on employment, contrary to classical economic theory. … They found that separations, new hires, and turnover rates declined significantly after a minimum wage hike.

Prevailing wage is essentially a minimum wage for public construction. Prevailing wages reflect local labor standards and require that contractors pay workers at least the rate established in the private marketplace through competitive practices. …

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New Weapon in Day Laborers’ Fight Against Wage Theft: A Smartphone App

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By LIZ ROBBINS
MARCH 1, 2016

Just past sunrise on 69th Street, near a No. 7 subway stop in Queens, men in backpacks and work boots gather in groups, many on their cellphones.

They are workers at one of the largest day laborer stops in New York City, hoping to be hired. Most are undocumented immigrants who have reported being cheated by employers. In the fight against wage theft, their phones could soon become their biggest allies.

After three years of planning, an immigrant rights group in Jackson Heights is set to start a smartphone app for day laborers, a new digital tool with many uses: Workers will be able to rate employers (think Yelp or Uber), log their hours and wages, take pictures of job sites and help identify, down to the color and make of a car, employers with a history of withholding wages. They will also be able to send instant alerts to other workers. The advocacy group will safeguard the information and work with lawyers to negotiate payment.

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SAVE THE DATE – 18th Annual NAFC Conference – San Diego, CA – Oct. 16-19, 2016

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

March 3, 2016

NAFC will be holding their next Annual Conference in sunny San Diego, CA. The Conference will be held at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa on Mission Bay, just outside downtown San Diego. This year’s Conference will be jointly sponsored by the Center for Contract Compliance and will have a national and California state specific focus. The NAFC 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 information.

Business-labor partnership tackles wage theft on public projects

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Barb Kucera, Workday Minnesota
February 22, 2016

ST. PAUL – A joint effort between contractors and building trades unions has led to stronger enforcement of state laws on public construction – making a big dent in cheating and recovering nearly $1 million in stolen wages and benefits.

The partnership could be a model for addressing wage theft in other industries.

The federal government adopted wage standards for taxpayer-funded construction projects in 1931, when President Herbert Hoover signed the Republican-authored Davis-Bacon Act. In the decades since, many states, including Minnesota, and many local communities have followed suit.

Known as “prevailing wage” laws, these regulations require contractors bidding on publicly funded projects to pay wages and benefits in line with those of a particular location. In Minnesota, the state conducts surveys to determine the prevailing wages for different communities.

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New Study: Prevailing Wage Law Would Boost New Hampshire Jobs, the State Economy, and In-State Contractors

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

January 14, 2016
A new study released today by leading national researchers on the construction industry finds that a proposed New Hampshire prevailing wage law would boost the state economy by at least $300 million, create several thousand jobs, and increase state and local tax revenue by up to $17 million.

The report, published by the Keystone Research Center (KRC), an independent non-partisan economic policy group, was released in advance of hearings in Concord next week on the proposed prevailing wage law. New Hampshire is the only state in New England and the Northeast that does not have such a law.

The study uses a growing body of peer reviewed research, data from the Economic Census of Construction, and industry-standard IMPLAN software to analyze the impact of prevailing wage standards for skilled construction industry trades on the New Hampshire economy as a whole and on construction workers’ wages, benefits and reliance on taxpayer-funded public benefit programs.

(PDF of Press Release)

(PDF Copy of Full Study)

UPDATE: West Virginia House votes to repeal prevailing wage

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By WV MetroNews
Posted: Wed 3:17 PM, Jan 27, 2016

CHARELSTON, W.Va. (WV MetroNews) The House of Delegates Wednesday passed legislation repealing the state’s prevailing wage law that sets hourly pay rates for workers on state-funded projects. The bill (HB 4005) now goes to the Senate.

The 55-44 vote followed an emotional debate on the House floor between supporters and opponents of the legislation as labor union members and business backers looked on from the gallery.

(Read More)

Kentucky House panel defeats prevailing wage exemption bill

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Bruce Schreiner | Updated Feb 4, 2014

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – Cheered on by a roomful of union construction workers, a Kentucky House committee on Thursday defeated a Republican-backed bill to exempt public school projects from the state’s prevailing wage.

The arguments and outcome echoed past years when Senate Republicans made the prevailing-wage exemption a top priority, only to watch it stall in the Democratic-led House.

Republican Sen. Wil Schroder, the bill’s lead sponsor this year, said the issue will certainly resurface next year when the General Assembly’s political dynamics could be changed

(Read More)

State Prevailing Wage Laws Save or Create 400,000 Jobs in America

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

FIRST OF ITS KIND NATIONAL STUDY EXAMINES ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND FISCAL IMPACTS OF STATE PREVAILING WAGE LAWS

Posted by Frank Manzo IV
February 9, 2016

CONTACT: Todd Stenhouse, (916) 397-1131 or toddstenhouse@gmail.com

Chicago, IL – As policy debates rage in states from Michigan and New Hampshire to New Mexico and West Virginia, researchers from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, Colorado State University-Pueblo, and Smart Cities Prevail have just completed the first ever national study on the economic, social, and project cost impacts of state prevailing wage laws.

Prevailing wage laws govern the wage rates paid to construction workers on government-funded public works projects.

The report, entitled “The Economic, Fiscal, and Social Impacts of State Prevailing Wage Laws: Choosing Between the High Road and the Low Road in the Construction Industry,” utilizes industry standard IMPLAN modeling software and industry comparisons between states with and without prevailing wage laws to assess the impact of these policies on a variety of economic and social factors: including job creation, wages, worksite productivity, rates of in-state contracting, impacts on taxpayers, reliance on government assistance programs, and effects on communities of color and veterans.

(Read More)

(Report Fact Sheet)

(Full Copy of Report)

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BREAKING: McCrory issues executive order on worker misclassification (NC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Posted by : Rob Schofield
Friday, December 18, 2015

 

Gov. McCrory took a step in the right direction this afternoon on the issue of employee misclassification – the persistent problem that plagues thousands of North Carolina businesses wherein workers are improperly treated as contractors when they ought to be employees.  As we have reported on multiple occasions this year (and as Raleigh’s News & Observer documented a while back in its special series “Contract to Cheat,”) this is a huge problem that harms workers and honest businesses and robs the state of tax revenue. Doug Burton, a Triangle area contractor put it this way:

“Treating employees as independent contractors when in fact they are regular employees is a fraudulent business practice that has become an epidemic. Some call this ‘misclassification,’ but it is in fact fraud that lets these cheating businesses – many from out of state – off the hook for basic protections, including minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, health and safety protections, unemployment insurance, federal and state tax withholding, social security withholdings and matching and more.

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Back pay a boon for Tyler Middle School workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
December 20, 2015
by Ryan Murphy 

 

 

Randy Tong worked for about a year with Comfort Systems, a heating and cooling subcontractor, to help build the Georgie D. Tyler Middle School in Windsor.

Two years later, he finally got paid.

Tong and hundreds of other workers who were underpaid while working on the Tyler Middle construction job have finally received checks for back pay ordered as a result of a Department of Labor investigation — although some still have complaints about how much they got and how the process was handled.

(Read More)