Prevailing wage bill back on track

By James Briggs

A bill targeting the state’s prevailing wage law could begin circulating within weeks.

The legislation not only would seek to roll back the most recent changes made under the previous Democratic-controlled Legislature, but also would soften the law beyond its 2009 version, said Nathan Berken, a spokesman for state Rep. Mary Williams, R-Medford.

The prevailing wage law requires contractors prove they are paying competitive wages to employees working on public projects valued at $25,000 or more. Williams last year introduced a bill that would have reset the threshold to the 2009 project value of $234,000, but the bill failed.

Williams in February said she was close to introducing a new bill, but Berken said the process was delayed by debate and protests over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights from most public workers.

“With everything that’s been going on down here, things have been pretty crazy,” Berken said. “I don’t want to say we’re taking our time, but we’re not rushing it either.”

As a sense of normalcy returns to the Capitol, though, Berken said, prevailing wage is a rising priority.

“We’re going to go probably beyond Mary’s bill from last session, which was basically a repeal of what the changes were in the last budget,” Berken said. “But in terms of specifics, I think we’re not quite ready to talk about that yet.”

Some contractors and small-town officials have clamored for speedy changes to the prevailing wage law, which they say drives up construction costs, so a new policy can take effect before the construction season heats up.

“We think the market is best able to determine the allocation of resources and price of construction labor,” said John Mielke, vice president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin Inc. “That’s best achieved by repealing prevailing wage.”

But Robb Kahl, executive director of the Construction Business Group, a joint labor-management organization, said there’s an equally strong movement to oppose changes to the law.

The extra time, he said, has given his and other organizations the chance to reach out to lawmakers, particularly in the Senate.

“I think these six weeks have been a pretty rude awakening for these legislators,” Kahl said.

He said the prevailing wage law ensures a livable wage for construction workers and results in a better-trained, more serious workforce. He used as an example studies that indicate states that pay construction workers the most money tend to face lower overall costs for projects.

Kahl would be open to changes that resolve contractors’ concerns over the amount of paperwork required to comply with the prevailing wage law, he said, but not changes to the $25,000 threshold.

“If modifications are needed in that area, believe me, we’re all for minimizing paperwork and streamlining things,” Kahl said. “Let’s get that done if there’s some confusion.”

The governor has assembled a work group of lawmakers, contractors and other interested parties to explore prevailing wage, but it has only met once and there are no plans for a second meeting, Berken said.

It’s troubling, Kahl said, that a bill could come forward with such little collaboration.

“To have one meeting of that work group, and now Mary Williams is going beyond rollback, to basically dismantle prevailing wage, makes no sense to me,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to make sense to a lot of legislators we’ve been talking to.”

Berken, though, said Williams’ bill would reflect a compromise between groups that want to repeal prevailing wage and those that want to keep it exactly as it is.

“Mary is looking at something in between both of those options,” he said. “The trade associations that attended the one meeting wanted to keep the prevailing wage law as is. I think we made it clear we’d like to reform prevailing wage law beyond where it was last session.”