Anti-Prevailing Wage Package Moves Forward

After months of speculation about which prevailing wage bills the House Labor and Industry Committee would advance, a package of six prevailing wage bills were voted out of the House Labor committee on October 3. The committee originally had scheduled seven bills for votes, but House Bill 1367 was pulled from the agenda. The committee had held three public hearings on various "reform" bills earlier in the year. The bills are highly controversial, and each was reported out of committee along straight party line votes, Republicans for and Democrats against. A couple of the bills were amended first, though. In particular, House Bill 1685 was changed to remove the reference to the Occupational Outlook Handbook as the guideline for craft definitions, and new language was added that allows the Secretary of Labor and Industry to establish craft classification definitions. Essentially, this would replace the historical "custom and usage" rule in defining craft classes.

Democrats offered amendments to each bill, attempting to include provisions requiring E-verify, language statutorily prohibiting workers from kicking back wages to employers as well as other common sense ideas, but Republicans rejected them all, again along party lines. The bills have now been placed on the House Calendar for first reading. Typically the next step is re-referral to the House Appropriations committee for a fiscal note. At this time, there is no definite time table for a floor vote, but it could come before the end of October, or it may never come depending on the pleasure of the House leadership. Everyone is strongly encouraged to contact his/her state House member and ask that he/she oppose all of the bills.

All of the bills would amend the prevailing wage act. A brief description of each bill is as follows:

• House Bill 1271- Redefines the definition of “maintenance” to broaden it (maintenance is not covered by the state prevailing wage law). This bill is primarily aimed at reversing a court ruling that decided that “road milling” is covered by prevailing wage.
• House Bill 1685- Originally made the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics the source for craft definitions, but the amended bill gives authority to the Secretary of Labor and Industry to define classifications using a wide variety of information as the basis.
• House Bill 1329- Increases the threshold of when prevailing wages apply from $25k to $185k.
• House Bill 1367- States that the Secretary of Labor and Industry shall base prevailing wage rates on data from the Center for Workforce and Analysis.
• House Bill 1541- Limits applicability of the prevailing wage law to only those projects that receive 51% or more funding from a public body.
• House Bill 709- Exempts school districts from prevailing wage law.
• House Bill 1191- Exempts local governments (political subdivisions) from prevailing wage law.