Federal jobs

[gadfly56]

i have a question...

Did he pay you what you agreed upon as a wage between the two of you?

yes or no?

Wrong question. Was it a Davis-Bacon job, yes or no? You cannot agree to be paid less on a Davis-Bacon job. And it doesn't matter if the job ended yesterday or ten years ago, he's still entitled to be paid what the feds says he's entitled to. Period.

 

[liquidtite]

i have a question...

Did he pay you what you agreed upon as a wage between the two of you?

yes or no?

jobs that were not pw he paid me the wage we agreed upon.
when I asked him at the interveiw what the wage was for the pw jobs in the city he said
ill have to get back to you.

After I worked on the pw job and got my first paycheck ,I asked him what was the rate and he said " let's just say it's to much" .

When he said that it made me suspicious .I didn't look further into it bc I needed the work and I was getting good experience,the specs called for every circuit to be in conduit . And before I wanted to call dol I needed to have another job lined up.

After a year of working on the job I found another jobs so if I get fired I would have a plan b ..

 

[liquidtite]

Graduating from an apprentice program is not a requirement
in a non union shop

Wrong question. Was it a Davis-Bacon job, yes or no? You cannot agree to be paid less on a Davis-Bacon job. And it doesn't matter if the job ended yesterday or ten years ago, he's still entitled to be paid what the feds says he's entitled to. Period.

Exactly he asked the wrong question it has nothing to do with what me and the contractor agreed upon anyways .
Its what the gov says I should be paid .I don't think it was a Davis-bacon job ,

when I called a different division the articles that he sent me didn't mention it.

 

[Smart $]

...
Its what the gov says I should be paid .I don't think it was a Davis-bacon job ...

Quoted from Wikipedia:

The Davis?Bacon Act of 1931 is a United States federal law that establishes the requirement for paying the local prevailing wages on public works projects for laborers and mechanics. It applies to ?contractors and subcontractors performing on federally funded or assisted contracts in excess of $2,000 for the construction, alteration, or repair (including painting and decorating) of public buildings or public works?.

 

[growler]

And it doesn't matter if the job ended yesterday or ten years ago, he's still entitled to be paid what the feds says he's entitled to. Period.

Being entitled to payment is not the same thing as actually getting paid.

Myself and about 30-40 other guys were entitled to a lot of extra money back in the 80's from a Federally funded job but by the time we found out about it the company was bankrupt and the owner was dead. Being entitled is great but if there is no money you don't get anything.

 

[liquidtite]

In the article that was sent to me from the dol .

It says you have up to 3 years to make a claim

 

[petersonra]

I never said I was in an apprentice program , he hired me as an apprentice .Since he gets jobs that are rate and non rate when I step on a job thats pw I cannot be titled an apprentice ,bc I never graduated from a apprentice program ,and must get jmans wage .It has nothing to do with being qualified ,of course I was qualified or I wouldn't have been picked to work at that job

he cannot legally hire you on a prevailing wage project into an apprentice slot if you are not eligible for that slot. as a contractor on a PW project he has to know this. I don't believe he can "hire you as an apprentice" either. You either are or are not an apprentice for a PW project. these kind of projects generally require some kind of documentation for payroll classification purposes. at the very least you would have to state that you are an apprentice. I don't know if he is required to verify such statements.

Are you saying the contractor is claiming you as an apprentice on non-PW jobs? what benefit would there be to doing that for him? No one cares on that kind of project if you are an apprentice or not, or for that matter what you are being paid. he can give you any title he wants to and pay you anything he wants to that you are willing to accept, as long as it meets whatever minimum wage laws apply.

Incidentally in one of your posts you said something about not being an apprentice because you did not graduate from an apprentice program. My understanding is that once you graduate from such a program you are no longer an apprentice, so kind of by definition a graduate of an apprentice program cannot be an apprentice, so I don't understand the point you were making there.

 

[liquidtite]

Growler explained it and so did I pretty clear for you on page 2 .what are you confused about

 

[petersonra]

Growler explained it and so did I pretty clear for you on page 2 .what are you confused about

what he said only applies to non-PW projects, so i don't see how it would apply to a PW project.

 

[gadfly56]

what he said only applies to non-PW projects, so i don't see how it would apply to a PW project.

Which is exactly what we are discussing. Davis-Bacon is NOT "prevailing wage". Davis-Bacon is a federal requirement, prevailing wage is set by the state, county or municipality. Don't muddy the discussion with "prevailing wage" and "apprentice". For Davis-Bacon and NJ, there are NO APPRENTICE RATES FOR ELECTRICIANS. In fact there is only "Cable Splicer" and "Electrician". The current rate for the later is $55.15 per hour with 55.5% in fringes.

 

[petersonra]

He mixes in a lot of different stuff.

His post title is federal jobs.

then he talks about prevailing wage projects.

then he says he was hired as an apprentice for projects where he clearly can't be an apprentice.

he goes around in circles to the point where I am completely lost as to what he is trying to get at, which may explain why the DOL people or whoever it is he has been talking to are unable to help him.

 

[Fulthrotl]

Wrong question. Was it a Davis-Bacon job, yes or no? You cannot agree to be paid less on a Davis-Bacon job. And it doesn't matter if the job ended yesterday or ten years ago, he's still entitled to be paid what the feds says he's entitled to. Period.

it was the right question for me to ask, which is why i asked it.

i understand davis-bacon.

i also understand, NOW, that the OP agreed to work for someone
WITHOUT AGREEING ON A WAGE. and now, that it's all over, he
wants to see if he can get more money. and he wants someone
else to do the work to get the money for him. the department of labor.

so the question for me then becomes, why on earth would you
agree to work for someone without agreeing on a price?

"i'll get back to you."

"how much are you supposed to pay me?"
"too much."

if someone can't adequately REPRESENT THEMSELVES in the face of
answers like those, there is nothing i can say on an internet forum
that can be of any help to them.

 

[growler]

i also understand, NOW, that the OP agreed to work for someone
WITHOUT AGREEING ON A WAGE. and now, that it's all over, he
wants to see if he can get more money. and he wants someone
else to do the work to get the money for him. the department of labor.

The OP did agree to a wage with his employeer without knowing what he was required "by law" to be paid.

It is the job of the department of labor to make sure that the correct scale is paid on these federally funded jobs.

As far as scale paid it's not optional, neither the employee nor the employeer has any say about what scale is to be paid for this work. The scale to be paid is the prevailing wage.


The employeer is the only one that would have been required to know exactly what the scale to be paid for this work was. The OP asked his boss for this information an was not given an answer.

I don't see anything wrong with him wanting the DOL to do their job.

 

[growler]

so the question for me then becomes, why on earth would you
agree to work for someone without agreeing on a price?

It's doesn't matter if they agreed on a price or not.

If I were to bring a 90 year old man, sitting in a wheelchair, needing a seeing eye dog and having an IQ of 40 and not having one day of electrical experience out to do electrical work on a federally funded project I would have to pay him full scale wages.

The scale for these jobs is set by the government.

The price is not negotiable. The employeer is required to know this ( he signed the contract) not the employee.

If the employeer didn't want to pay full scale to the OP he should have given him his walking papers and hired someone else.

 

[growler]

He mixes in a lot of different stuff.

His post title is federal jobs.

then he talks about prevailing wage projects.

then he says he was hired as an apprentice for projects where he clearly can't be an apprentice.

he goes around in circles to the point where I am completely lost as to what he is trying to get at, which may explain why the DOL people or whoever it is he has been talking to are unable to help him.

Bob this guy is an apprentice, he is working in a trade where he is expected to learn said trade through hands on training. The hours that he is working for a licensed master will count toward him being able to apply to test for his own masters license one day. His boss may call him an apprentice or he may call him a helper but it's all the same thing.

What this guy is not is part of a "federally approved apprenticeship program". That would be the only way his employeer could keep for paying him full scale wages.

What this guy wants is money that should legally ( required by contract and law )have been paid to him. If his boss was a dumb ass and didn't know the law he shouldn't have been bidding federal jobs.

 

[petersonra]

Bob this guy is an apprentice, he is working in a trade where he is expected to learn said trade through hands on training. The hours that he is working for a licensed master will count toward him being able to apply to test for his own masters license one day. His boss may call him an apprentice or he may call him a helper but it's all the same thing.

If it is not a government job, and not a union contract, he can give the guy whatever title and whatever wage they agree on.

Pretty much all government and union jobs the term "apprentice" is well defined and he has to meet all the requirements of being an apprentice to work as an apprentice on those projects. The employer cannot just hire him and claim he is an apprentice if he is not one by how these projects define an apprentice.

They might have hired him as a laborer and called him an apprentice internally for some reason. Some places seem to use the terms sort of interchangeably. But then he would have to be paid at the laborer rate. I did not look it up but my guess is that even the laborer rate in NY is more than what he was paid.

 

[growler]

If it is not a government job, and not a union contract, he can give the guy whatever title and whatever wage they agree on.

Pretty much all government and union jobs the term "apprentice" is well defined and he has to meet all the requirements of being an apprentice to work as an apprentice on those projects. The employer cannot just hire him and claim he is an apprentice if he is not one by how these projects define an apprentice.

They might have hired him as a laborer and called him an apprentice internally for some reason. Some places seem to use the terms sort of interchangeably. But then he would have to be paid at the laborer rate. I did not look it up but my guess is that even the laborer rate in NY is more than what he was paid.

I agree that an employeer can't not just call him an apprentice to apply the lower pay scale on a federally funded job.

They may have hired him as a laborer but that wouldn't really matter.

The only thing that does matter is the type of work he was doing on this particular job. A laborer is not allowed to wear tools and do hands on electrical work. Even those that are considered management (salaried employees ) are not allowed to wear tools and do hands on electrical work. Anyone doing hands on type electrical work is required to be paid at an hourly scale rate.

 

[growler]

I posted a thread a few mounts ago regarding federal pw jobs that I was working on in NYC . I believe I was not paid correct amount i was being paid around 21 ph .21ph is apprentice wage after looking at the dol website and articles it states you can not be deemed an apprentice if you have not graduated from a federally approved apprentice program,therfor I should have been paid jambs wage witch is around 50 ph.

He mixes in a lot of different stuff.

His post title is federal jobs.

then he talks about prevailing wage projects.

then he says he was hired as an apprentice for projects where he clearly can't be an apprentice.

he goes around in circles to the point where I am completely lost as to what he is trying to get at, which may explain why the DOL people or whoever it is he has been talking to are unable to help him.

This guy never said that he was hired as an apprentice, he stated that he believed that he was being paid at the allowed apprentice rate.

He used the term "graduated" instead of saying "enrolled" in an approved apprenticeship program. That may have been a mistake but I think most of us understood what he was talking about.

How is he supposed to know what type of project he is working on if his boss refuses to answer simple questions such as what scale he is being paid? He has not seen a contract or been allowed to view any of the paperwork. I have worked on projects when I didn't even know who's license we were working under.

All of this information should have been explained to the workers. If there are any laborers on the job they should have been informed of just exactly what they were allowed to do.

When an employee ask what scale they are being paid the correct answer is not "to much". The correct anser is whatever the scale is for the work they are doing.

 

[liquidtite]

He mixes in a lot of different stuff.

His post title is federal jobs.

then he talks about prevailing wage projects.

then he says he was hired as an apprentice for projects where he clearly can't be an apprentice.

he goes around in circles to the point where I am completely lost as to what he is trying to get at, which may explain why the DOL people or whoever it is he has been talking to are unable to help him.

you get confused very easily and I don't think your knowledge on this subject is up to par it shows with the obvious questions you still are asking

 

[liquidtite]

it was the right question for me to ask, which is why i asked it.

i understand davis-bacon.

i also understand, NOW, that the OP agreed to work for someone
WITHOUT AGREEING ON A WAGE. and now, that it's all over, he
wants to see if he can get more money. and he wants someone
else to do the work to get the money for him. the department of labor.

so the question for me then becomes, why on earth would you
agree to work for someone without agreeing on a price?

"i'll get back to you."

"how much are you supposed to pay me?"
"too much."

if someone can't adequately REPRESENT THEMSELVES in the face of
answers like those, there is nothing i can say on an internet forum
that can be of any help to them.[/QUOTE what does agreeing on a price have anything to do with a pw job like the other members have said its up to the government to determine the wage I should get. Have you any experience on pw jobs