Prevailing wages are important to workers, contractors and taxpayers (PA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

by: Jack Ramage
Posted:
Aug 16, 2019 / 12:00 AM

The Aug. 11 letter “High Gas Tax Feeds a Broken System” by Nathan A. Benefield, in response to the Aug. 4 article “Why Is Pa.’s Gas Tax So High? We’ve Got a Lot of Roads,” identifies three reasons. He is correct on two of those reasons; Pennsylvania gas taxes fund mass transit operations and pay for much of the state police budget, not just roads. Prevailing wages however, are not a contributing factor.

Prevailing wages do not increase the cost of publicly funded construction projects. In those states that have repealed prevailing wage laws, the promise of lower-cost public construction projects never materialized. Casually concluding that eliminating prevailing wage requirements will automatically reduce construction costs is an out-of-touch misconception of today’s economic environment.

Every segment of the economy is competing desperately for qualified workers. Allowing contractors to lower construction workers’ wages in order to gain an unfair advantage over the competition will cause a race to the bottom and exacerbate the shrinking workforce crisis resulting in costlier projects, substandard workmanship and delayed completions due to a shrinking number of skilled workers in construction. States throughout the country are reporting shortages in skilled construction labor. These shortages are especially acute in states where prevailing wage laws have been repealed.

Prevailing wages create a level playing field by establishing reasonable wages and benefits for workers building our state’s infrastructure projects. Without prevailing wages, unscrupulous contractors will import cheap labor and eliminate good paying jobs for the citizens of Pennsylvania, creating an environment where no one wins: not the workers, not the local contractors and, most of all, the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

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

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

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.

…

“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.”

…

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

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May Day Parade Stands Up Against Wage Theft (DC)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

May 07, 2018
by Negin Owliaei

As buildings rise in Navy Yard, so too do rents. The rapidly gentrifying pocket of Washington, D.C. has been lining the pockets of developers for years, but the money doesn’t always make its way to the construction workers building the luxury apartments popping up around the neighborhood.

That’s especially true for the workers contracted out by Power Design, a Florida-based electrical company that’s been sued more than a dozen times for wage theft. Activists targeted the firm’s Navy Yard construction sites on May Day to educate workers on their rights and remind the companies working with Power Design that they’re responsible for wage theft that happens on their watch.

The local DC chapter of Jobs with Justice has been leading the charge to hold Power Design accountable for its poor labor practices and to push city officials to uphold the laws meant to keep the company in check. A report released by the group earlier this year highlighted the company’s “race to the bottom” mentality.

Power Design, the report says, has faced at least 13 lawsuits around the country for wage theft. The report also details the company’s practice of classifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees, cutting corners on crucial protections and taxes and allowing Power Design to underbid other companies that uphold labor standards.

DC Jobs with Justice Executive Director Elizabeth Falcon shared this information with parade-goers as she led the crowd to various construction sites that contract to Power Design around D.C.’s Navy Yard neighborhood. “We need these developers who are taking these bids to understand we see them,” Falcon said.

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Hail the Prevailing Wage!

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

A prevailing wage has come under attack from advocates looking for something cheaper. And it’s shameful!

BY GARY LABARBERA
MARCH 8, 2018 1:54 PM

This is New York. We don’t do “race to the bottom” here.

We don’t invite in bottom-fishers and corner-cutters to build our buildings. And we don’t scapegoat workers.

That’s because we need the best. So we build the best.

As a Commercial Observer reader, the same goes for you, too.

You don’t “race to the bottom” when it comes to staffing up your brokerage, your development company, or your investment firm.

Yet in the world of public-sector construction, prevailing wage laws have again come under attack from advocates of bottom fishing.

But prevailing wage laws are not just good for construction workers and the agencies undertaking public projects. These laws are also good for all New Yorkers.
For more than a century, New York State has maintained an important and progressive social compact: fair wages for fair work. The pay of workers engaged in public projects must align with local prevailing wage and benefit levels. Hard-working New Yorkers thus have access to good-paying jobs and proper protection from unsafe working conditions.
And with the State’s FY 2018 capital budget exceeding $14 billion, it’s critical to shake off faulty assumptions-and recognize that prevailing wage requirements also save taxpayers money.

New data now show how these rules ensure effective cost management on public projects.

…

Gary LaBarbera is the president of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York.

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Labor leader: Prevailing wage protects workers from ‘race to bottom’

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Matt Glynn , and Jonathan D. Epstein
Published June 30, 2017 | Updated June 30, 2017

New York State has had a prevailing wage law since 1894, and supporters say it’s needed to protect workers from being undercut and underpaid by contractors and government agencies. They also argue that prevailing wage laws help ensure that the size of public contracts – and the potential for a bidding race to the bottom to win them – don’t destabilize local and regional construction markets.

But critics say the laws hurt free-market competition, drive up costs on public projects and provide little real 30benefit to the economy other than protecting labor unions.

Conservative researcher E.J. McMahon and union advocate Richard Lipsitz Jr. recently sat down with The News to talk about the controversy over the state’s prevailing wage requirements.

Richard Lipsitz Jr. sees the prevailing wage law as protection against the “race to the bottom.”

The president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization covering 100,000 union members in six counties, Lipsitz has been active in the labor movement since the 1970s, and the federation he leads has been outspoken in the drive to raise the state’s minimum wage.

Q: How does the state’s prevailing wage benefit construction workers?

A: It is a wedge against the race to the bottom in the construction field. Without provisions like prevailing wage, there would be no guarantee that a contractor wouldn’t go down and pay the minimum that he has to or she has to. It’s a rule that keeps this race from the bottom from being carried out in the construction field.

And it also helps with the workers in all other fields. The idea of a prevailing wage, as a good wage and benefits package that people can live on, is mostly talked about in the construction field. But the Commerce Department keeps a prevailing wage on all kinds of occupations in New York State, not just for building trades. So I don’t think it’s quite right to just see it as a construction trades question.

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