Prevailing wages?

[Double Edge]

Davis Bacon was originally passed in 1931. It is one of the last remaining Jim Crow laws that was written to prevent minority workers and their employers from working in the trade. It applies to federal work only but some states have passed "Little Davis Bacon Acts" that have the same provisions for state work. The state or federal DOL administer the plans but the states have a tendency to mirror what the feds do.

The rates are set by the DOL doing a survey of what the "prevailing wage" is for the area. The surveys have been a source of corruption in some states and AFAIK are always set at union wage rather than the average wage paid to electricians in the area.

The law still puts most non-union shops and workers to a disadvantage by the administration of the benefit provisions. Only benefits that are recognized by the DOL are approved. They pretty much only recognize the programs the union offers though there have been independent programs developed specifically for the non-union contractor through the years.

By way of example, we have a retirement plan, health insurance, paid holidays and vacation. We can't apply the benefit portion of the legally required payment towards these real benefits because they are not DOL approved. So my workers are paid the dollars instead AND the benefits. That puts me as a contractor and them as a labor pool to a disadvantage because they cost more money and are therefore less competitive in the market.

 

[mkgrady]

It is correct that the PW does include the benefits and they must be paid in some manner, either on the check or as benefits. However, at least around here, the benefits for union members are not in the form of deductions, they are paid by the contractor in addition to the wages on the check. In my area, they amount to ~$23.00 per hour over the wage rate of $36.10, so an employee with no benefits would have to receive $59.10 per hour on the check on a PW job.
Don

I suspect the PW in your area is about $59.10 based on what you say.

 

[quogueelectric]

pw Google Wicks Law

pw Google Wicks Law

Bob,

I have never seen that. I just checked the state published rates for my area and they are an exact match for the union contract in the area.
Don

If a person is not a union member he or she recieves the benefit package in a check which gives the apearance of a higher wage on an hourly basis.

 

[satcom]

A little history, of how the prevailing wage laws came about, http://www.solidarity.com/Davis-Bacon.htm

 

[ITO]

For what it is worth, I have done many prevailing wage jobs (doing 3 right now) and I had to provide certified payroll reports, and on occasions signed (by the employee) certifications of their wages. If your boss was required to pay a prevailing wage it would have been difficult, and even maybe criminal to short cut the system.

The city probably has a purchasing office, you could start there, but before you stir up that hornets nest perhaps you should just talk to your boss, especially considering there is an organizer stirring the pot here and he may not have you bosses best interest in mind.

 

[LawnGuyLandSparky]

Davis Bacon was originally passed in 1931. It is one of the last remaining Jim Crow laws that was written to prevent minority workers and their employers from working in the trade. It applies to federal work only but some states have passed "Little Davis Bacon Acts" that have the same provisions for state work. The state or federal DOL administer the plans but the states have a tendency to mirror what the feds do.

What the laws were enacted to prevent was the underhanded practice of underminimg a locality's prevailing wage by importing cheaper, often lesser skilled and immigrant workers from lower-cost of living areas into areas where the standard (and cost) of living was higher.

The rates are set by the DOL doing a survey of what the "prevailing wage" is for the area. The surveys have been a source of corruption in some states and AFAIK are always set at union wage rather than the average wage paid to electricians in the area.

I know that in some areas it is higher than the union scale. But in areas where it mimics union scale and benefits, that is the most accurate, verifiable way to estimate the going rate.

The law still puts most non-union shops and workers to a disadvantage by the administration of the benefit provisions. Only benefits that are recognized by the DOL are approved. They pretty much only recognize the programs the union offers though there have been independent programs developed specifically for the non-union contractor through the years.

You would think that if a nonunion shop or group of nonunion shops wanted "in" they'd get their benefit's packages and the administration thereof "approved" by the DOL.

Why do you suppose they don't run right off and do that?

By way of example, we have a retirement plan, health insurance, paid holidays and vacation. We can't apply the benefit portion of the legally required payment towards these real benefits because they are not DOL approved. So my workers are paid the dollars instead AND the benefits. That puts me as a contractor and them as a labor pool to a disadvantage because they cost more money and are therefore less competitive in the market.

That makes me wonder why you don't apply for recognition of your own company benefits programs with the DOL, so that you can be competitive?

 

[Double Edge]

history

Of course all written historys have an editorial component. Best to read several and decide for yourself.

""Passed at the beginning of the Depression at the instigation of the labor union movement, Davis-Bacon was designed explicitly to keep black construction workers from working on Depression-era public works projects.
<snip>
The story of Davis-Bacon begins, one might say, in 1927 when a contractor from Alabama won a bid to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in Long Island, New York.[7] He brought a crew of black construction workers from Alabama to work on the project. Appalled that blacks from the South were working on a federal project in his district, Representative Robert Bacon of Long Island submitted H.R. 17069, "A Bill to Require Contractors and Subcontractors Engaged on Public Works of the United States to Comply with State Laws Relating to Hours of Labor and Wages of Employees on State Public Works, the antecedent of the Davis- Bacon Act.""
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-017.html

 

[LawnGuyLandSparky]

Of course all written historys have an editorial component. Best to read several and decide for yourself.

And always consider the source. Who does the CATO INSTITUTE, the source of the editorial below, work for? Where is their funding coming from?

""Passed at the beginning of the Depression at the instigation of the labor union movement, Davis-Bacon was designed explicitly to keep black construction workers from working on Depression-era public works projects.
<snip>
The story of Davis-Bacon begins, one might say, in 1927 when a contractor from Alabama won a bid to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in Long Island, New York.[7] He brought a crew of black construction workers from Alabama to work on the project. Appalled that blacks from the South were working on a federal project in his district, Representative Robert Bacon of Long Island submitted H.R. 17069, "A Bill to Require Contractors and Subcontractors Engaged on Public Works of the United States to Comply with State Laws Relating to Hours of Labor and Wages of Employees on State Public Works, the antecedent of the Davis- Bacon Act.""
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-017.html

In reality...

By the time the Davis-Bacon Act became law, seven states had already enacted prevailing wage statutes ? most notably, Kansas, which passed the first state prevailing wage law in 1891.

New York also had a prevailing wage statute on the books before the turn of the century, nearly 30 years before the first version of the Act was introduce in Congress in 1926 ? in the midst of the roaring twenties.


Unfortunately, this local legislation didn't apply to Federal projects, yet. This is probably why local Long Islanders were so appaled to see an out-of-state contractor, who rounded up thousands of unskilled blacks from Alabama, and housed them in shacks on the grounds of what was to become a prime 18-hole golf course on the Veteran's Administration Medical center.

There is no doubt in my mind that racism played a role in the ensuing outcry. Ater all, we (Long Islanders, most due to white-flight from NYC tenements) demanded the parkway bridges be built extra-low to prevent the bussing of "certian people" from NYC to "our" beaches.

Racism definately had a role, but wasn't the root cause for the act. The root cause was that many Northerners felt that when taxpayer money is used for the taxpayer's benefit, it should start right from the begining, and that there was something inherently not right about building major public works projects with cheap imported labor.


By the middle of the 1920s, the United States government was already greatly involved in heavy construction projects ranging from flood control and dam building to expanding and housing the institutions of government.

Federal and state governments were preparing to become even more active and sought to protect themselves from falling victim to ?fly-by-night? ?cut throat? contractors who performed ?shoddy? work with ?exploited?, ?low-skilled? and ?imported? workforce.

Interestingly enough, those were not the words of labor, but were the words of the bill?s primary sponsors, Congressman Robert Bacon and Pennsylvania Senator James Davis, who viewed their bill not so much as a means to protect workers, but more as a way of providing some market stability in what was, and still is, an inherently unstable construction industry.

Then as now, construction is a time and materials industry. Low bid requirements on public projects allowed contractors from outside an area to bid and win work based on substandard wages and helped create the situation where contractors literally ?imported? low-wage workers from around the country rather than use the local labor force.

Abuses were wide spread in the years preceding the Acts passage. Bacon, a former Banker, explained the need for the law when he detailed for his colleagues during debate on the bill how a construction firm from Alabama transported thousands of unskilled workers to a public project in New York.
[b/]

 

[dwellselectric]

Thank you guys for all your advice I am going to talk to the town clerk about it tuesday.

 

[satcom]

For what it is worth, I have done many prevailing wage jobs (doing 3 right now) and I had to provide certified payroll reports, and on occasions signed (by the employee) certifications of their wages. If your boss was required to pay a prevailing wage it would have been difficult, and even maybe criminal to short cut the system.

The city probably has a purchasing office, you could start there, but before you stir up that hornets nest perhaps you should just talk to your boss, especially considering there is an organizer stirring the pot here and he may not have you bosses best interest in mind.

ITO has a good point, check with your boss first, he may have done the job under the laws dollar limit, and that does not require PW pay, as you said "til I went for a job at the local 223 and the president was telling me that he thinks that I should of been getting prevailing wages."

 

[mdshunk]

ITO has a good point, check with your boss first, he may have done the job under the laws dollar limit, and that does not require PW pay, as you said "til I went for a job at the local 223 and the president was telling me that he thinks that I should of been getting prevailing wages."

Sorta looks like his state has no minimum dollar limit on prevailing wage for public works, according to the FAQ on his state's website. There is a deadline to complain about the fact in most states, however. In mine, the employee only has 6 months to realize that he got gyped.

 

[satcom]

Sorta looks like his state has no minimum dollar limit on prevailing wage for public works, according to the FAQ on his state's website. There is a deadline to complain about the fact in most states, however. In mine, the employee only has 6 months to realize that he got gyped.

How about that, Mass has no limits, ut oh!

The police station may of been a historic building, and the landfill may of been a private dump.

 

[ITO]

Sorta looks like his state has no minimum dollar limit on prevailing wage for public works, according to the FAQ on his state's website. There is a deadline to complain about the fact in most states, however. In mine, the employee only has 6 months to realize that he got gyped.

With the level of reporting we have to do on jobs like these, there would be fraud involved not to pay PW.

 

[mdshunk]

With the level of reporting we have to do on jobs like these, there would be fraud involved not to pay PW.

I know of at least 2 cases where the authority having the work done really lost track of exactly where that particular batch of money came from for that particular project, and forgot to let everyone involved know it was a PW project. Oops. I'm outta the loop then.

 

[ITO]

Ahhhh yes that could happen too.

My big issue with PW jobs is they expect us to pay LV wire slingers (FA alarm grunts) PW as if they were full blown Electricians, because there is not a classification for someone that handles copper wire other than electrician.

I have also been on jobs where the masons got PW, then had to buy very expensive pencil from the their boss every week to sign up and work another week.

 

[mdshunk]

I have also been on jobs where the masons got PW, then had to buy very expensive pencil from the their boss every week to sign up and work another week.

I know of a local EC that pays his guys 85% of electrician PW. Regardless of what you did that week, he's only counting 85% of your time working as doing electrical work, and figures you were a laborer at least 15% of the time. That may or may not be true, but that's really operating on the fringes, in my opinion. I guess that's how he wins so much rate work.

 

[sheldon_ace]

I know of a local EC that pays his guys 85% of electrician PW. Regardless of what you did that week, he's only counting 85% of your time working as doing electrical work, and figures you were a laborer at least 15% of the time. That may or may not be true, but that's really operating on the fringes, in my opinion. I guess that's how he wins so much rate work.

that takes some serious balls. If your touching anything that belongs in division 15, then you are doing electrical work even if it is only laboring. I really believe that alot of contractors have really lost sight of how to keep employees highly productive. Does anyone on here think that pissing off an employee is going to make them work for you? I became an electrician because it is more than just a paycheck. Sure the high $ I get paid are appreciated, but the motivation goes deeper. In our trade we get to solve problems all day everyday. We are constantly thinking all day long. To me that is important, if it was just a job, than I would have become a laborer. I just think that if you pay an electrician what they are worth, and give them the respect they deserve, you will attract the creme of the crop, and they will always have you in their best interests. Electricians are smart individuals, they don't buy into the "be lucky you have a job attitude", because without highly productive electricians, contracts will never come in at or under budget. The electrician, contractor relationship should be of give and take, compromising. The us vs. them attitude really hurts our industry.

Gerry

 

[LawnGuyLandSparky]

Ahhhh yes that could happen too.

My big issue with PW jobs is they expect us to pay LV wire slingers (FA alarm grunts) PW as if they were full blown Electricians, because there is not a classification for someone that handles copper wire other than electrician.

I have also been on jobs where the masons got PW, then had to buy very expensive pencil from the their boss every week to sign up and work another week.

On a PW job it doesn't matter if you have to pay floor sweepers $1000.00 bucks an hour. Everyone bidding is doing so under the same parameters. The playing field is level.

The whole point to PW is that if YOUR shop wins the bid, it is because you came in the lowest for reasons other than having the lowest paid employees in the area.

 

[ITO]

sheldon_ace-
Touching anything Div-15, it does not make you an electrician, but it might make you a plumber.

 

[ITO]

LawnGuyLandSparky- That may be the intent but application is much more complicated than that.