Tag Archive for: Prevailing Wage

EXCLUSIVE: Attorney General’s office recovers nearly $5.7M in owed pay for New York low-wage workers

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ALBANY — State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office recovered nearly $5.7 million in owed pay and damages for more than 3,300 low-wage workers since last Labor Day, the Daily News has learned.

The recoveries are included in a third annual Labor Day report Schneiderman’s office is set to release Monday.

The recovered wages by Schneiderman’s Labor Bureau went to fast-food employees, home health aides, taxi drivers, restaurant employees and construction workers.

“As Attorney General, I remain steadfastly committed to ensuring that workers are paid for the work they do, that their pay lifts them out of poverty, and that undue obstacles aren’t placed in their path to job security and economic advancement,” Schneiderman said.

Read the full article here.

Ludlow contractor fined for not paying employees prevailing wage

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By Kristen LinnartzPublished: July 13, 2016, 12:38 pm  Updated: July 13, 2016, 1:48 pm

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LUDLOW, Mass. (WWLP) – Attorney General Maura Healey announced on Tuesday that a Ludlow contractor has agreed to pay more than $27,000 in restitution and penalties for violating the Massachusetts prevailing wage law.

SSR Construction, Inc. and its owner Peter Slivka accepted two civil citations and agreed to pay $27,387.20 in restitution and penalties to resolve allegations that they were not paying their workers the required prevailing wage rate and failed to submit true and accurate certified payroll records to the awarding authority on a weekly basis.

“Contractors working on public projects must pay their workers a fair wage,” said Attorney General Healey. “The prevailing wage law protects workers and we will continue to enforce the law and hold accountable companies who fail to adequately compensate their workers.”

The Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division started investigating Slivka and SSR Construction in January of 2014 after receiving a complaint that they were not paying their workers the required prevailing wage rate. During their investigation, they found that between September 4, 2013 and December 6, 2013 SSR Construction performed work on a project to renovate the City Hall in Westfield and failed to pay its workers the correct prevailing wage rate. It also didn’t submit true and accurate certified payroll records to the awarding authority on a weekly basis.

Through the settlement with the Attorney General’s Office, four employees will receive restitution payments.

Weakening Prevailing Wage Hurts Local Contractors

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A case study from Southern Indiana demonstrates how weakening prevailing wage negatively impacts local contractors and local workers.

Out-of-state contractors benefited after Indiana weakened its prevailing wage law, according to a new Economic Commentary from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute.

Despite an emerging academic consensus that shows state prevailing wage laws have no discernible impact on project costs, lawmakers in Indiana weakened the state’s law – called Common Construction Wage – between 2012 and 2015. In 2013, the threshold for coverage was increased from $250,000 to $350,000, meaning that workers were no longer paid a prevailing wage rate on projects costing between $250,000 and $349,999.

Prior to raising its contract threshold to $350,000, hourly earnings for construction workers in Indiana were similar to all neighboring states except Kentucky. Economic research suggests that out-of-state contractors with lower-paid workers will flood the public construction market after a prevailing wage law is weakened. If true, the greatest threat to Indiana contractors would come from across its southern border in Kentucky, where construction workers earned $5 less per hour on average in July 2012.

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Indiana’s southern border with Kentucky is thus a good case study on the local impact of weakening prevailing wages. There are 13 southern Indiana counties that border 14 northern Kentucky counties.

After weakening prevailing wage, employment in the heavy and civil engineering sector declined in Indiana’s southern-most counties but grew across the river in Kentucky border counties. After the Common Construction Wage threshold was raised, southern Indiana’s public works construction sector had an employment loss of 885 workers (21.2 percent). Meanwhile, public works construction employment increased by 770 workers (20.7 percent) in the Kentucky border counties.

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The average monthly earnings of employees in heavy and civil engineering construction careers also declined after prevailing wage was weakened in the Indiana counties but increased across the river in the Kentucky counties. After adjusting for inflation, the county-level earnings of public works construction employees declined by $439 per month for the average Hoosier worker. At the same time, average earnings increased by $610 per month for comparable workers across the border in the Kentucky counties.

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In this integrated regional economy along the Ohio River, the evidence suggests that out-of-state contractors from Kentucky with lower-paid construction workers were the real beneficiaries of Indiana weakening its prevailing wage law.

After Indiana weakened its prevailing wage law, higher-paid public works construction workers in the state’s 13 southern-most counties were replaced by lower-paid workers across the border in 14 Kentucky counties. The redistribution of jobs and earnings to Kentucky construction workers has an adverse impact on income tax revenues and sales tax revenues in Indiana.

This case study should be a cautionary note to lawmakers in states across the Midwest who are considering weakening their state’s prevailing wage.Prevailing wage is a policy that promotes high-road economic and community development. Weakening prevailing wage only hurts local contractors and workers.

How to thank this veteran (and others): Support prevailing wage

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Gilbert Charles, of Pinckney, is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the 1980s and moved to the skilled trades. His son, Matt, has followed in his father’s footsteps as a veteran and now as an apprentice learning how to become an electrician.

By Gilbert Charles

As we near Veterans Day, we will hear from many political leaders how grateful they are for our service. Some will express concern about veterans who return home and their opportunity to find a good job to support their families.

As a U.S. Army vet who served in the 1980s — and as the father of an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan — I always appreciate those thoughts. But I’m also concerned about efforts in the Legislature that would cut the pay of many Michigan veterans working in the construction industry.

I returned to Michigan after my service, and looked around for a good job, one that would let me build on my training, provide fairly for my family, offer decent health care benefits and a path to retirement. I found that job, training in an apprentice program and becoming a journeyman electrician as a member of IBEW Local 252. A portion of my paycheck each week goes to the apprenticeship program, to ensure those veterans and others who come after me get the training they need to do their job well and safely.

That turns out to have been a good investment. Now my son Matt is following in my footsteps. He’s in the Local 252 IBEW-NECA apprenticeship program, earning while he learns, at no cost to taxpayers. We know a lot of veterans in the industry. A recent report by the State of Michigan showed that about 9 percent of veterans are in the construction industry, compared with about 6 percent of state workers overall. And many were attracted to the fair pay and good training made possible by the state’s prevailing wage laws.

It’s exciting to see my son work in major, complex construction jobs at the University of Michigan — jobs that demand the skills I’ve gained over the years. But it’s not clear that good paying jobs in the skilled trades professions will be available to future vets.

A handful of politically powerful special interests want to cut the pay and benefits going to skilled trades workers by eliminating prevailing wage policies, even though research shows taxpayers won’t save a dime.

Prevailing wage policies say that taxpayer-supported jobs have to pay the going rate of pay in the region — usually the union-negotiated wage. Any company can bid, union or nonunion. But they have to pay a fair wage rate. It helps keep out-of-state companies from coming in with cheaper, less skilled workers to do the minimally acceptable job that meets minimum standards.

It’s in the state’s best interest to attract veterans such as Matt into the skilled trades, where there is a shortage of workers today. But without prevailing wage policies, the job will be a lot less attractive — in fact, many skilled-trades workers, including veterans, won’t enter the profession, or will go to another state. (Other Midwest states have prevailing wage policies, it’s mostly low-paying states in the South that don’t). Union apprenticeship programs will also disappear, and taxpayers will have to pay for those programs.

So this November, don’t just thank Matt and I for our service. We know you appreciate that. Take another step. Tell your lawmakers to support good jobs for veterans by supporting prevailing wage laws. That way Michigan veterans can return confident they will be able to get good training and support their families by taking jobs in the skilled trades

Attacks On Prevailing Wage Laws Disproportionally Hurt Veterans

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Media Contact: Doug Gordon (202) 494-5141 |doug@dsgstrategies.com

Report Finds That As Hundreds Of Thousands Of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Enter Work Force, Prevailing Wage Greatly Improves Economic Outcomes For Veterans

A first-of-its-kind study released on May 10, 2016 finds that prevailing wage greatly improves economic outcomes for veterans and that growing attacks on prevailing wage at the state level will disproportionally hurt the hundreds of thousands post-9/11 veterans who are returning to the workforce.

Exploring of the economic impact of state prevailing wage laws on veterans in the construction industry, the study was commissioned by VoteVets, the largest progressive group of veterans in America. The study was conducted by Frank Manzo IV of the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor Robert Bruno, and Colorado State University-Pueblo Economist, Dr. Kevin Duncan.

“The data clearly shows that veterans work in the skilled construction trades at significantly higher rates than non-veterans,” said Manzo. “The difference is even more pronounced in states with average or strong prevailing wage policies–so any changes in these laws will have an outsized impact on those who have served in the military.”

Click Here to Download the Full Report.

Click Here to Download a Summary of the Report.

With construction now the second-fastest growing industry in America, the military is helping active duty service personnel prepare for civilian careers through the US Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP)—which now accounts for almost 22% of all registered apprenticeships in the country.

The study found that prevailing wage laws not only encourage more veterans to put these skills to work in their communities, but that they pull thousands of veterans out of poverty each year in the process.

Utilizing industry standard economic modeling, it also found that if each of the states with average or strong prevailing wage laws enacted repeals, 24,000 veterans would lose their health insurance, another 65,000 would leave the construction workforce, veteran construction workers would see their incomes drop by $3.1 billion per year, and nearly 8,000 veteran owned construction businesses would shut their doors.

With prevailing wage laws coming under attack in at least 11 states over the past two years, VoteVets has announced that it will be begin airing ads to educate the public about the importance of these standards, and hold lawmakers accountable.  The campaign will begin in Illinois, where Governor Bruce Rauner had proposed repeal at the local level as part of his “Turnaround Agenda.”

“It is appalling to see so many politicians who profess to ‘support veterans’ actively fighting to cut their wages,” said VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz. “Prevailing wage laws help more veterans translate battlefield skills into middle class careers in their communities.  With too many post 9/11 veterans struggling to find work, we need to be strengthening these laws, not weakening them.”