Builders, construction workers settle fight over California wage theft bill (CA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

BY ALEXEI KOSEFF
SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 9:52 AM

A contentious proposal that would put California builders on the hook for wage theft violations by their subcontractors has advanced to Gov. Jerry Brown after a last-minute agreement between the author and opponents.

The Assembly on Wednesday sent to the governor’s desk Assembly Bill 1701, which would allow construction workers who have not been paid for a job to seek their back wages and benefits, with interest, from the general contractor, even if they did not work directly for that company on the project.

Both the building industry and construction trade unions lobbied heavily on the measure, by Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, in the final weeks of session, plastering websites with digital advertisements, passing out fliers on the sidewalk outside the Capitol and setting up an electronic billboard across the street.

Unions argued that AB 1701 gives workers a legal remedy when subcontractors skip town or file for bankruptcy before paying employees, while the building industry warned that it could drive up the cost of construction and worsen California’s housing crisis by potentially forcing them to pay twice for labor.

Yet the measure received overwhelming support Wednesday when it came up for a vote in the Assembly, passing 52-13. Just before that, Thurmond said, he submitted a letter to the Legislature stating his intent to carry a follow-up bill. It will remove a section of AB 1701 that builders worried could be used to hold them liable for further monetary damages.

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Prevailing wage is good for workers (DE)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Letters to the Editor
Published 9:00 a.m. ET Sept. 12, 2017
Updated 10:26 a.m. ET Sept. 12, 2017

There he goes again. In the Monday News Journal story “Prevailing wage law ignites Republican suspicion,” Sen. Greg Lavelle continues to offer alternative facts about the state’s prevailing wage law.

The truth is prevailing wage is determined by wage surveys of construction work done in Delaware, reflecting a market rate for construction workers. It includes a worker’s total compensation – take home pay, cash value of health care benefits, and retirement benefits.

The prevailing wage applies to union and non-union construction workers and it levels the playing field for Delaware workers by protecting their wages from unscrupulous contractors and out of state workers.

Plus, multiple studies and analyses of other states, like Wisconsin and Indiana, that have eliminated prevailing wage have shown that the savings promised through the deceitful and anti-worker rhetoric never materialized.

Mike Hackendorn
Vice President, Delaware Building Trades Council

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Democratic leaders: Prevailing wage is good for Delaware (DE)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Senators David McBride, Margaret Rose Henry and Nicole Poore
Published 2:07 p.m. ET July 21, 2017
Updated 2:33 p.m. ET July 21, 2017

The 2017 budget debate is behind us, and plenty of page space in this publication and others has been committed to its finer details. We’re perplexed, though, by how much of the Republican dialogue continues to be dominated by an issue completely peripheral to the budget: the prevailing wage paid to blue-collar workers on public works projects.

Partisan misinformation has clouded the truth surrounding both the budget and the prevailing wage. We believe that the public deserves a discussion that cuts through political spin and cocktail napkin math and offers a straightforward inventory of the facts.

Prevailing wage laws ensure fairness in government contracts by basing laborers’ total compensation on a survey of similar workers in their area, just as anyone would expect wages commensurate with their skills, occupation, and cost of living.

You may have heard some of the following myths:

Myth: The prevailing wage is a budget issue that affects the $354 million deficit closed by the General Assembly earlier this month.

Fact: Public works projects are funded almost entirely by the capital budget, or “bond bill,” a completely separate balance sheet. Our operating deficit was caused by a unique combination of factors: growing public school enrollment, special education costs, national health care prices, and a tax portfolio that works more like a scratch-off ticket than a speedometer for our economy. Our colleagues across the aisle who sit on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee are perfectly aware of that fact.

Myth: Reducing or repealing the prevailing wage would lower public construction costs by as much as 24 percent.

Fact: Multiple studies and real-world examples show that this is simply untrue. States that slash public works wages rarely realize the cost savings that are promised in campaign years, while middle class wages tumble and the economy suffers. That actually does hurt the state’s bottom line.

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Michigan petitioners stretch truth for signatures (MI)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Jonathan Oosting
Published 11:32 p.m. ET Aug. 2, 2017 Updated 7:28 a.m. ET Aug. 3, 2017

Lansing – Summer is petition season in Michigan, where paid circulators are taking advantage of warm weather and public events to collect signatures for at least three statewide initiatives – and sometimes stretching the truth in their sales pitch to voters.

A circulator working a park concert last month in Lansing approached a Detroit News reporter and requested signatures for two separate petitions, including one she said was “for the teachers and construction workers to help protect their wages, benefits and pensions,” a claim she repeated twice.

The initiative actually seeks to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law, which guarantees union-level wages and benefits for workers on some government-funded construction projects. It has no direct connection to teacher compensation, but supporters contend it would reduce school construction costs. Critics argue it would drive down worker pay on construction projects.

…

His bill would make it a misdemeanor crime for a paid or volunteer circulator to “knowingly and willfully circulate, publish, or exhibit a false statement or misrepresentation concerning the contents, purport or effect” of a statewide petition. Violators could face up to 93 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $500.

“I believe that the petition process is a fundamental part of our democracy here in Michigan, but you’re stealing that from somebody when you lie to them, when people think they’re signing one thing and they’re actually signing something else,” Hertel said.

Similar anti-lying legislation was introduced in the House by Rep. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, but the proposals have not yet been taken up by Republican majorities in either chamber.

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Leroy Miller: Repealing prevailing wage will hurt vets (WI)

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Leroy Miller
7/19/17

I love my country. I’ve fought for my country. My brothers and sisters have died for this country. I want to continue to serve my country.

I am a heavy-equipment operator, happily and dutifully building new infrastructure for Wisconsin communities.

My concern is, and has been, what state legislators are proposing in a full repeal of the state’s longstanding prevailing wage law. This is the law that protects Wisconsin workers from low-wage-paying, out-of-state contractors who will be free to pay their workers substandard wages in the interest of undercutting Wisconsin contractors and effectively stealing jobs here. And guess what? It’s working.

Last legislative session our elected leaders in Madison partially repealed prevailing wage for municipal-funded projects, which went into effect this January. Since then, a state review of projects to-date found there has been a more than 53 percent increase in out-of-state contractors securing Wisconsin work. Those are Wisconsin jobs being lost, Wisconsin tax dollars leaving the state and hard-working Wisconsin families being hurt. You don’t have to be a political wonk to understand how and who this hurts – Wisconsin workers.

Why as a proud veteran am I involved? Many of us veterans are drawn especially to two lines of work after our service – law enforcement and construction. I’ve chosen construction because I want to continue to serve my country in a meaningful way but lacked the necessary skills to make the transition. Thanks to many of the construction trades in Wisconsin they have specifically designed apprenticeship programs for veterans to provide them the necessary training and skills to transition into the construction industry.

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Prevailing wage, project labor agreements protect living standards for construction workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By ROBBIE HUNTER
July 6, 2017 at 12:01 am

In an era of political hyperventilation, it might be a good idea for some critics to take a deep breath before they launch into their attacks on the prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements that protect the living standards of construction workers in California and across the nation.

From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, anti-union writers in recent weeks have incorrectly branded the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act that wrote the prevailing wage into the law on taxpayer-funded construction projects as born of racism and a rip-off of public funds. The same critics also have falsely characterized project labor agreements as costly to taxpayers and unfair to nonunion construction companies.

Now, for the facts.

Two Republican congressmen, Sen. James Davis of Pennsylvania and U.S. Rep. Roger Bacon of New York, sponsored their legislation 86 years ago to establish a minimum wage on taxpayer-funded construction projects, based on local measures of central tendency in any of the covered construction trades.

The idea behind the prevailing wage is to keep unscrupulous operators from low-bidding the legitimate competition to the detriment of the local workforce. The effect has been to allow blue-collar workers – 400,000 of whom are represented by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California – to maintain their place in the American middle class.

Of the false charges that have been lodged of late about Davis-Bacon, perhaps the most repugnant is the smear that recirculates every so often that the act originated as an outgrowth of racism. The critics troll through the historic record to quote some congressmen in the debate over Davis-Bacon who supported the law based on their own warped view that it was designed to protect higher-paid white workers in the northeast represented by the authors of the law from “cheap colored labor” that would be imported to their districts from the South. The critics fail, however, to report Congressman Bacon’s reply that imported workers came in white skin as well as black.

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The truth about the Davis-Bacon Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Letters to the Editor – Opinion
June 25 at 7:42 PM

George F. Will’s hit piece on the Davis-Bacon Act, “To create, destroy this law” [op-ed, June 18], was hardly surprising from a columnist who once wrote “the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0.”

We take issue with the absurd myth Mr. Will recycled about the intention of the law. As other right-wing ideologues have done, Mr. Will used an 85-year-old quote from Rep. William Upshaw (D-Ga.) to support his charge of racism but neglected to share the response by Rep. Robert Bacon (R-N.Y.) – one of the act’s namesakes – which refutes Upshaw’s comments and shows the Davis-Bacon Act was meant to address the concern that without any wage standards public construction was driving down wages for both white and black workers.

The truth is that the Davis-Bacon Act simply requires payment of “prevailing” wages and benefits when federal money is used for construction projects. These standards have kept public investment from undermining local standards for decades.

The politicians and policy hacks pushing to repeal Davis-Bacon are eager to distract us with baseless charges because if they reveal their true aim – to eliminate all wage and benefit standards – they will have no support.

Terry O’Sullivan, Washington
The writer is general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

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Democrats, Veterans Continue Battling Possible Prevailing Wage Repeal

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

GOP Proposal Would Eliminate Prevailing Wage On State-Funded Construction

Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 3:55pm
By Laurel White

Democrats and veterans groups are continuing to fight a repeal of Wisconsin’s prevailing wage laws.

The laws set minimum salary requirements for workers on government-funded construction projects. In 2015, GOP lawmakers repealed those requirements on local projects. This session, they’ve introduced a bill that would extend that to state-funded projects.

At a state Capitol press conference Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers argued the change would lower wages in a field that employs a proportion of veterans.

Matt Bell, an Army veteran and owner of a contracting business in McFarland, said the repeal of prevailing wage would hurt his business.

“If you create a work environment that suppresses wages, drives people from a meaningful career in construction and encourages out of state construction companies to take Wisconsin jobs, you will drive people of out their jobs that they love and deny them the ability to provide for their families,” Bell said.

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Prevailing Wage Repeal Could COST Wisconsin Taxpayers Over $300 Million Per Year

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Analysis of studies cited by advocates of prevailing wage repeal highlights massive social costs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 19, 2017
Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Madison: While critics of Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law have long claimed that repeal would save money by cutting the wages of blue-collar construction workers, a Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) analysis of two reports frequently cited to support the claims of prevailing wage critics shows that repeal could actually cost Wisconsin taxpayers over $300 million each year.

For its study, MEPI examined how construction wage cuts would affect overall state tax revenues and reliance on five different government assistance programs utilizing the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance’s recent claim of a 44% cut, and a 2015 Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis that suggested repeal of prevailing would reduce wages by 14.1%.

“If an entire segment of Wisconsin’s blue-collar workforce faced a wage cut of 14% to 44%, it would mean thousands more Wisconsin workers would be on government assistance, and Wisconsin’s state government would have significantly less tax revenue to pay for these benefits,” said MEPI Policy Director Frank Manzo IV. “Using the wage cut figures promised by the law’s critics, we can assess that prevailing wage repeal would impose a potential social cost to Wisconsin taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars each year-without producing any real savings in total project costs.”

The current average wage for skilled construction workers, on which MEPI’s analysis is based, is $51,600 per year. The 44% wage cut claimed by the Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance would reduce this average to less than $29,000 per year for those employed on public works projects. This would leave affected construction working families of four eligible for well-over $16,000 per year in government subsidized health, food and heating assistance, plus another $5,000 per year in Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC). The reduction in wages would also reduce their state and federal income tax payments by an average of $4,800 per year, for a potential annual social cost of more than $26,000. Similarly, a 14% wage cut would result in a potential social cost of over $17,000 per year for a family of four.

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(Full PDF of Report)

Chowdhury: Repeal of prevailing wage would hurt Wisconsin economy

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Abdur Chowdhury
10:17 a.m. CT June 6, 2017

Out-of-state companies received $32 million in contracts for municipal projects in Wisconsin between January and April of this year, up from about $21 million during the same period in 2016. That represents a 53% increase.

Contracts that should be going to Wisconsin companies are now being given away to out-of-state companies from Florida, Kentucky and Missouri. The difference? No prevailing wage protection on municipal projects.

In 2015, the Wisconsin Legislature voted to end prevailing wage in local projects – a provision that took effect this January. Republicans in the Legislature are now considering a full repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law.

This law requires that construction workers on state construction projects be paid the wages and benefits prevailing for similar work in or near the locality in which the construction project is to be performed. The concept arises from the concern that unbridled competition among employers to pay low wages in low-bid public construction environment would lead to a less-skilled and less-productive workforce and to shoddy construction practices and unsafe public buildings and infrastructure.

While the Legislature was debating this issue in 2015, many of us had expressed concern that eliminating the law would cut wages and invite so-called “gypsy contractors” from out of state to bid on Wisconsin projects. Research conducted by Frank Manzo and his co-authors indicated that the amount of construction work that would be leaked to neighboring states would cost Wisconsin 6,700 jobs and $40 million in tax revenue, and reduce economic activity in the state by $1.1 billion. For every dollar of construction value that is completed by an out-of-state contractor, economic activity would decrease by $2.26 in Wisconsin.

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