# Prevailing wage job or not?



## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

Should I bid on a smallish prevailing wage job or not? I've never done one before but I have done jobs somewhat bigger than this job. I'm a paintcontractor in the Louisville Ky/Southern Indiana area. 

The labor rate for this job is around twenty bucks per hour plus a nine dollar an hour fringe benifit. Are these jobs harder or any different than an open market job? I realize an open market job I pay the going rates instead of being told what to pay my people. 

This is decent job but I'm leary about getting involved in prevailing wage jobs. I don't like the whole idea of labor being artificially increased. I'll definitely have to bid the job twenty percent higher than I normally would. What advice can some of you that have had experience in the prevailing job world give me? Another thing, I don't have a bunch of money in the bank to cover such high payroll while I wait for a first draw. I'm scared on this and am thinking about not bidding. I can't see my company making anymore money on this job than if it were a normal open market job, I'll probably lose a little money.


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

Prevailing jobs are good well paying jobs. 

Be prepared to certify your payroll every 2 weeks, you will get audited when you are done the project. If you make an error you will be fined, no exceptions.

You must meet full payroll every 2 weeks, a prevailing wage inspector will be on site a minimum of every 2 weeks and will interview a minimum of 2 of your guys.

Once you have a signed contract, the bank will be your friend since it is a government funded job, you can borrow or get a line a credit without issue.


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## Grumpy (Oct 8, 2003)

If you've got all your insurance and licensing and properly set up employees there's no reason not to pesue it.


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

Chris Johnson said:


> Prevailing jobs are good well paying jobs.
> 
> Be prepared to certify your payroll every 2 weeks, you will get audited when you are done the project. If you make an error you will be fined, no exceptions.
> 
> ...


So I only pay my people once every two weeks? Also, when you say I will get audited, are you refering to a tax audit or a payroll audit?

I've always worked basically as a one man band, occasionally using contract labor. I have liability insurance but do not currently carry workmen's comp. I've signed a waiver in the past that allowed me to not have to carry workmen's comp. I'm just really scratching my head on this, way to many strings attached for my taste. But the money seems to be there?


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## KillerToiletSpider (May 27, 2007)

Dorman Painting said:


> So I only pay my people once every two weeks? Also, when you say I will get audited, are you refering to a tax audit or a payroll audit?
> 
> I've always worked basically as a one man band, occasionally using contract labor. I have liability insurance but do not currently carry workmen's comp. I've signed a waiver in the past that allowed me to not have to carry workmen's comp. I'm just really scratching my head on this, way to many strings attached for my taste. But the money seems to be there?


You will have to carry WC on a government job, and provide it for your employees, who will have to be considered employees, you won't be able to use so called subs. You will also have to file a W-2 for all employees, and with hold taxes at the proper rate from their paycheck, the auditor will check that. You can pay them bi weekly if that is the norm for your company policy, most union contracts require an employee to to be paid within 2 business days of the last day worked in the pay period, with a pay period not exceeding seven days.


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## Kgmz (Feb 9, 2007)

What state are you thinking of doing this prevailing wage work?

By doing a simple internet search you can find everything you need to know and download the forms, etc. you will need. Every state is a little different on how they handle this.

So don't go by how everyone else is doing it in other states. For me in Washington and Oregon, it isn't a big deal, just normal paperwork you should be doing anyway and should have on hand if you are ever audited. And in over 25 years I have never been audited by the state or federal government for anything, not even prevailing wage work. And we have done prevailing wage work as the prime general contractor and as subcontractors.

Kentucky link below, you will also need a performance bond to guarantee you are going to pay the wages

http://www.labor.ky.gov/ows/employmentstandards/prevailingwage/

Indiana, prevailing wage is called "Common Construction Wage"

http://www.in.gov/dol/2775.htm


Just read KillerToilets post and he is right, you will have to be a real employer who carries WC and pays taxes, etc. everything he mentioned.

Do you even have a Federal ID number for payroll taxes (otherwise known as your 91 number), etc.?


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

Kgmz said:


> What state are you thinking of doing this prevailing wage work?
> 
> By doing a simple internet search you can find everything you need to know and download the forms, etc. you will need. Every state is a little different on how they handle this.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the links and information. I've always been a one man band and everything has really dried up in my area, I'm thinking about doing more commercial jobs.

Of course when going the commercial route it also means expansion of the company...growth. People are afraid of change and I'm no different, I've never had the hassles of dealing with WC, payroll taxes etc. I'm a sole proprietor and yes I have a tax number, I pay taxes every year believe it or not. Just because someone's small or works as an individual doesn't mean they don't pay taxes on their wages. I've had plenty of 1099's etc. that I've had to file for. 

The going rate for a painter in Kentucky is around 18 bucks an hour on the wage jobs, plus another 9 bucks an hour for fringe benefits. I have a hard time paying people this type of money when the open market around here doesn't even come close to commanding this type of wage. It will artificially increase the cost of labor big time...however I realize to adjust for those circumstances in my quote. I'm still debating on this...thanks for the info.


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## Tiger (Nov 21, 2007)

Simplify your life. If you don't have an accountant, get one. Your accountant can do payroll, W2s and make sure everything is in order for the audit. You can do something you're more qualified to do.

Dave


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## Floordude (Aug 30, 2007)

I thought prevailing wages, were the basis for "the going rate" 

Someone, is actually making sure somebody else is making a living and not being exploited.:thumbsup:


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

Floordude said:


> I thought prevailing wages, were the basis for "the going rate"
> 
> Someone, is actually making sure somebody else is making a living and not being exploited.:thumbsup:


Do you actually think an unskilled painter, which BTW, I'm a paint contractor, is worth almost twenty bucks an hour?? 

I was going to bid a high school here in Indiana, the unskilled guy was right at 20 per hour, the semiskilled guy was 28 an hour and the skilled guy was 33 or so an hour. I'm sorry, but the open market in MY area, certainly doesn't command these gaudy labor costs. 

An unskilled painter in my definition, which I think is much more appreciable than the common wage committe's, is a person who is VERY green about anything and everything. No way that guy is worth twenty bucks an hour, sorry, I'm aint buyin that.


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

Prevailing wage is basically a union project without the union, but in order to be fair to everyone, every one must pay the same rates. Prevailing wage is the union rate plus all the benefits.

Both union and non union companies can bid the work with it being a fair chance for the union company to get the job as well, we all know non union companies can underbid the union companies by not offering benefits and paying lower wages. This can't happen on prevailing wage jobs.

I have worked 2 prevailing wage jobs so far, right along side union workers and I am non union. Since it is prevailing wage you don't have issues, you are not scabs, you are paying your guys the same as what they get plus the benefits.

It's a big adjustment for the crew when the job is done, last one I did last summer framers were paid $ 49.17 per hour including benefits pay, when the job was done they all went back to $ 25-40 per hour, laborer was at $ 35.27 went back to $ 18 per hour...a real shich for them.

Some guys were smart and saved the 'bonus' money, others bought T.V.'s, Blu-ray players, everything else you can think of.

Also remember...if you have any questionable employees (i.e. you think the info on the I-9) is not really them...they will get found out...really quick. I had one guy apply, everything looked good, D.L., SSN, birth cert., he spoke english like he was born here...number didn't match his name...gave him an opportunity to go to SS admin and fix it, never saw him again.


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## eastend (Jan 24, 2006)

So the purpose of prevailing wage is to protect the union worker- right? And usually it is government jobs that require prevailing wage. Which means that the taxpayer has to subsidize overpriced wages. Is that fair?
Case in point: We did a prevailing wage project that required my company to pay $50 per hour ( including benefits) for guys that were stripping paint from wood. Takes a little skill, but not rocket science. In the free marketplace you can find competent workers at $12-15 to do this job. So, why does the government insist on paying over 3x as much. Talk about government waste!

I, of course, had to charge way more than I normally would to cover the prevailing wage ( mind you- my guys loved it- they normally make $18-25 hr) So that project cost the taxpayer much more than it should have- and this to protect a union worker??

Doesn't make sense to me.


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

eastend said:


> So the purpose of prevailing wage is to protect the union worker- right? And usually it is government jobs that require prevailing wage. Which means that the taxpayer has to subsidize overpriced wages. Is that fair?
> Case in point: We did a prevailing wage project that required my company to pay $50 per hour ( including benefits) for guys that were stripping paint from wood. Takes a little skill, but not rocket science. In the free marketplace you can find competent workers at $12-15 to do this job. So, why does the government insist on paying over 3x as much. Talk about government waste!
> 
> I, of course, had to charge way more than I normally would to cover the prevailing wage ( mind you- my guys loved it- they normally make $18-25 hr) So that project cost the taxpayer much more than it should have- and this to protect a union worker??
> ...


Absolutely, it costs the taxpayers MUCH more money than it really should to construct a school or any government job. No way does a unskilled worker, which BTW, is basically a laborer, command a twenty dollar an hour salary in the open market. 

The unions are the MAIN reason that work is going south of the border and beyond. My whole family has worked or retired from Ford Motor Company, and while I certainly realize the great benefits reaped by having the union, they've basically priced their work force out of the market place. That's why the union has been shrinking since the 70's. 

I will have to charge around sixty dollars a man hour on these prevailing wage jobs to make a profit. I normally charge around forty dollars a man hour, so yeah, the cost of labor jumps dramatically.


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

I don't look at it as protecting the union worker, I consider it using the creme of the crop, at the prevailing wage rates that one must pay you have no difficulty selecting from a large pool of qualified workers.

Your regular worker who you pay say $ 18.00 and hour to is still in training, suddenly you put him in a prevailing wage job and you must pay him the highest rate. If you were a union company then you could pay him less based on where he is in his apprenticeship program, since you are non union there is no such thing as a recognized apprenticeship program and you must pay the highest rate.

You are allowed to have laborers at a lower rate, make sure though they are in fact doing labor rate work, if he is say holding a paint brush and applying paint you must pay the higher rate. You do have the right in prevailing wage work to adjust pay levels throughout the day for various work being done, i.e. unloading and stocking materials and putting away ladders and clean up can be considered labor rate, applying paint and related work is the higher rate. Issue with that is you need to employ someone FULL TIME to walk around and keep detailed accurate records of who's doing what and when...not worth it when you consider the cost of that employee at a prevailing wage rate.

Since your pay rate is so high and your employee pool opens up to the best of the best, prevailing wage jobs are generally 'better built' since you don't have fly by night guys trying to do work they are not qualified for. You have the choice to keep em or let em go...there will be a line up of guys wanting to replace them.

When the job is done if you don't have more work for the crew and lay them off they will qualify for unemployment and since the pay rate was so high your reserves account can dwindle quickly. That's a chance you have to take, most guys will have something else lined up if you have nothing for them and not be a burden on society.

Take the job...you will glad you did.


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## KillerToiletSpider (May 27, 2007)

Chris is correct, it has nothing to do with protecting the unions, it is to double the labor pool and draw the best craftsman, whether they are union or not.


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## eastend (Jan 24, 2006)

how does that increase the labor pool and draw the best craftsmen? In my scenario, I'm using my guys, and I'm just paying them double or triple what they normally make.
If there was no prevailing wage, I'd still be using my guys, and paying their normal rate- and saving the taxpayers a bunch! 
Maybe in theory P/W is supposed to attract a "higher" caliber of worker because there is a higher rate of pay. But at least in my experience that is not the case.
In the real world, are you saying you would not use your regular employees, and go get "better" help because of P/W? I really doubt it.


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## KillerToiletSpider (May 27, 2007)

eastend said:


> how does that increase the labor pool and draw the best craftsmen? In my scenario, I'm using my guys, and I'm just paying them double or triple what they normally make.
> If there was no prevailing wage, I'd still be using my guys, and paying their normal rate- and saving the taxpayers a bunch!
> Maybe in theory P/W is supposed to attract a "higher" caliber of worker because there is a higher rate of pay. But at least in my experience that is not the case.
> In the real world, are you saying you would not use your regular employees, and go get "better" help because of P/W? I really doubt it.


But in your area how strong is the union workforce? In a union town like Chicago union shops won't bid a large project if it is not P/W, and since about 80% of new construction is union built, you are losing a lot of the labor pool.


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

Chris Johnson said:


> I don't look at it as protecting the union worker, I consider it using the creme of the crop, at the prevailing wage rates that one must pay you have no difficulty selecting from a large pool of qualified workers.
> 
> Your regular worker who you pay say $ 18.00 and hour to is still in training, suddenly you put him in a prevailing wage job and you must pay him the highest rate. If you were a union company then you could pay him less based on where he is in his apprenticeship program, since you are non union there is no such thing as a recognized apprenticeship program and you must pay the highest rate.
> 
> ...


You're wrong if you really believe that paying PW rates actually increases production or as you say, attracts the cream of the crop. It MAY attract the cream of the crop if you have assess to the better painters, such as a big city. But if you're in small town USA, the prevailing wage rate has virtually no impact on what kind of painter you can attract. 

Paying PW rates does screw John and Susie taxpayer, why the government would want to build a school for twenty five percent more than it should cost is beyond me. PW rates ARE NOT in line with the open market, take that to the bank.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

eastend said:


> So the purpose of prevailing wage is to protect the union worker- right? And usually it is government jobs that require prevailing wage. Which means that the taxpayer has to subsidize overpriced wages. Is that fair?
> Case in point: We did a prevailing wage project that required my company to pay $50 per hour ( including benefits) for guys that were stripping paint from wood. Takes a little skill, but not rocket science. In the free marketplace you can find competent workers at $12-15 to do this job. So, why does the government insist on paying over 3x as much. Talk about government waste!
> 
> I, of course, had to charge way more than I normally would to cover the prevailing wage ( mind you- my guys loved it- they normally make $18-25 hr) So that project cost the taxpayer much more than it should have- and this to protect a union worker??
> ...


Yes, it's called Union Welfare. The prevailing wage or as it's officially called "The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931" is a law passed by Congress in 1931 with the intent of favoring white workers who belonged to white-only unions over non-unionized black workers.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

Dorman Painting said:


> Paying PW rates does screw John and Susie taxpayer, why the government would want to build a school for twenty five percent more than it should cost is beyond me. PW rates ARE NOT in line with the open market, take that to the bank.


 
Yes, the taxpayers get screwed big time.:furious:


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## KillerToiletSpider (May 27, 2007)

Brickie said:


> Yes, it's called Union Welfare. The prevailing wage or as it's officially called "The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931" is a law passed by Congress in 1931 with the intent of favoring white workers who belonged to white-only unions over non-unionized black workers.


Which local did you get thrown out of?


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## Floordude (Aug 30, 2007)

prevailing wages, keep the wages somewhat inline with the rise in the cost to live. What was once a respected trade, is now just a commodity.:shutup:


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

KillerToiletSpi said:


> Which local did you get thrown out of?


 
BAC DC 1 Thrown out??? Nope, got a better offer & made a hell of a lot more money


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## KillerToiletSpider (May 27, 2007)

Brickie said:


> BAC DC 1 Thrown out??? Nope, got a better offer & made a hell of a lot more money


Yeah every contractor that gets thrown out of the union says the same thing.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

Floordude said:


> prevailing wages, keep the wages somewhat inline with the rise in the cost to live. :shutup:


No, prevailing wage is price fixing


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## Floordude (Aug 30, 2007)

Brickie said:


> No, prevailing wage is price fixing


Union are usually employees of the contractor that hires them. There is no such thing as price fixing for employment.


Why were unions created in the first place, again?


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

Floordude said:


> Union are usually employees of the contractor that hires them. There is no such thing as price fixing for employment.


 
Baloney, When you are required by an outdated law to pay the prevailing wage, that is price fixing


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## Floordude (Aug 30, 2007)

No, it is making sure no one is being exploited. The reason Unions were formed in the first place. Or did you not go to school and learn that gem?:whistling


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

Floordude said:


> No, it is making sure no one is being exploited.


Unfortunately, the TAXPAYERS are being exploited. 

Taxpayers should not have to pay above the going market rate for their schools and city and county buildings.:no::no::no:


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

Well, here's your best option....

Don't bid on the job, someone else with more business sense then you will, they will get the job, their employees will be happy and life will go on.

The ***** you guys have is the high rate of pay.

The rate of pay is what the market rate for the area is, you may pay your crew less, good for you, you are getting guys to work for less than what the market feels they need to survive.

The benefit that you must pay is for item such as medical coverage, pension plan, 401k, etc. This benefit money you must pay on a prevailing wage job is something that you have the option of eithe A) just paying to the employee and he can do with as he pleases (most of which are not smart enough to think past next weeks paycheck and spend it) or B) incorporate a benefit package to your employees that is equal to what is expected of the prevailing wage project. Either way the employee recieves the benefit, it is either cash in lui of the benefits or the benefit itself.

You must realize that in my case the benefit was over $ 17.00 per hour for framing, I have medical for my employees that costs an average of $ 6.00 per hour based on a 40 hour work week, I will match a Simple IRA contribution up to $ 100.00 per pay period (every 2 weeks). this amount can be subtracted from the benefit, but I was responsible to make sure they were receiving wage + benefits + short fall from my benefits to what was required equaled the prevailing wage rate.

Is the taxpayer being exploited, NO, the figures are set using formulas to ensure the worker recieves a wage to meet the minimum standard of living. Where I live it has been determined that the cost of living for a family of four is $ 72,000.00, $ 63,000.00 for single, average income in my area is $ 45,000.00 per year. So, I would say a lot of people are living below poverty, without medical and overcrowding of housing. No wonder when my kids go to school the breakfast line up is out the door with a lot of kids having FREE breakfast.

On non prevailing wage projects my crew goes back to the acceptable area rate for non union workers, why, because that is the acceptable standard by which America is used to working. Can I afford to pay them more? Yes, but why jeopordize my lifestyle if I am not forced to. Am I an *******, depends who you ask, I am a businessman running an independent business and the buck stops here.


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

Dorman Painting said:


> No way does a unskilled worker, which BTW, is basically a laborer, command a twenty dollar an hour salary in the open market.


the word laborer in the open market gets thrown around for unskilled labor. A real Union Laborer are quite well trained and would make a unskilled worker look like the appentice they are. 

In these parts Laborer get paid more than Union Painters. UBC also took drywall finishing back from the Painters. :laughing:


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

Brickie said:


> Baloney, When you are required by an outdated law to pay the prevailing wage, that is price fixing


I like it that you want your employees to live in abject squalor. 

2008 HHS Poverty Guidelines 
Persons
in Family or Household 48 Contiguous
States and D.C. Alaska Hawaii 
1 $10,400 $13,000 $11,960 
2 14,000 17,500 16,100 
3 17,600 22,000 20,240 
4 21,200 26,500 24,380 
5 24,800 31,000 28,520 
6 28,400 35,500 32,660 
7 32,000 40,000 36,800 
8 35,600 44,500 40,940 
For each additional
person, add 3,600 4,500 4,140 



Also I bet most of your employees make 15 dollars a hour if they work 2000 hours they make 30,000 a year after taxes their net puts them at poverty levels.


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## Dorman Painting (May 2, 2006)

JustaFramer said:


> the word laborer in the open market gets thrown around for unskilled labor. A real Union Laborer are quite well trained and would make a unskilled worker look like the appentice they are.
> 
> In these parts Laborer get paid more than Union Painters. UBC also took drywall finishing back from the Painters. :laughing:


Let me tell you about unions, over at Ford Motor Company, which I've had four generations of my family work at, are drug addicts and drunks stumbling around the parking lot and plant. You can buy ANY drug of choice in the Ford Motor Company parking lot, or you can be like some in my family who choose to drink a six pack for lunch. Now Ford is scrambling like crazy to remain competitive because the UNIONS have overpriced their workers. Ford is now forced to offer buyout packages of 100 grand and basically hire a new, cheaper work force that starts out around 13 bucks an hour. So there's your Union lesson for the day partner. 

Unions were a strong and positive influence at one time, they are rapidly on the decline and have harbored scum bag workers for years. There's certainly good union workers, but the number of unproductive union workers is unbelievable. 

As for my business, why in the world would I want to pay a rate that is 1.5 times the actual open market rate?? It takes money out of my families mouths at that point and certainly doesn't benefit the leaders of a company. 

One more quick point about the automotive union...the MAIN reason average working people can't afford a new car is because of the gross amount of labor costs Ford and GM tack onto the final sticker.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

> Well, here's your best option....
> 
> Don't bid on the job, someone else with more business sense then you will, they will get the job, their employees will be happy and life will go on.


No, the best option is to work get rid of the outdated union welfare law




> The ***** you guys have is the high rate of pay.


You obviously haven't been following the thread. Taxpayers should not have to pay above the going market rate for their schools and city and county buildings.


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## Chris Johnson (Apr 19, 2007)

Brickie have you ever noticed that most contractor employees are changing every 18 - 24 months? Why? Bevause they don't make enough and need to move on to better paying jobs. Construction is such an unstable industry for the small guy, you can claim to me that you may pay your guys well, say $ 30.00 an hour (A decent wage) but that only allows a guy to pay his bills, he doesn't get ahead, if he has a disaster at home he has no savings, if things slow in the down season, he has no savings, if a job cancels and you give him a week or so off till you line something else up he has no savings.

Ever notice most employees either live with a bunch of people, or a trailer park, rent in the bad sections of town, etc, why, they can't get ahead on their current wages. Ever get those phone calls my 10+ year old car won't start, i'll be late for work? Employees don't have the resourses or the decent wage.

So yes, I have been following the thread and perhaps if wages were paid at a decent rate contractors getting sued for shoddy workmanship would disappear since qualified tradesmen who have been properly trained and done the same work for many years and cared about what they did would be employed regularly and the fly by night would go away.

Do you pay enough for someone to move to Chicagoland & NW Indiana to move into a decent neighborhood, drive decent vehicles and have medical and have savings for retirement? No, this is the purpose of Prevailing Wage on government funded projects, the government doesn't want people saying they took advantage of Americans and so and so didn't get paid well. The taxpayer, you and I and everyone else are funding these projects and the people doing the actual work are being compensated no better or worse than say a Cop, Firefighter, Teacher, City Workers, etc.

I'm not union, so don't keep blaming the union for this, this is the government facing reality. 

All projects should be priced this way, including private sector housing, unfortunately it will never happen, someone will always come along and hire unwitting underpaid employees and bid the job too low to meet these standards. This is called free enterprise and if you can find the guys and do the job this way, perfect, have at it but employee turnover will always be there since wages will never be high enough for the worker to maintain an acceptable standard of living.


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## Floordude (Aug 30, 2007)

Chris, the greed inside them, will never get it.

Yes, look up the definition of Exploited/Exploit/Exploiting, see if it rings a bell.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

Floordude said:


> Chris, the greed inside them, will never get it.
> 
> Yes, look up the definition of Exploited/Exploit/Exploiting, see if it rings a bell.


 

 Ahhh...... Class warfare. The last bastion of any failing argument.


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## Brickie (Jun 15, 2006)

> No, this is the purpose of Prevailing Wage on government funded projects, the government doesn't want people saying they took advantage of Americans and so and so didn't get paid well


You obviously have missed a few things in this thread that you claim that you were following. Let me help you out:

The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 (DBA), was a scheme originally hatched to prevent contractors in Rep. Robert Bacon's home district on Long Island from using "cheap colored labor" to build a veterans hospital. 

Yes sir folks, our government, since 1931, has itself aided and abetted racial discrimination in this country through its enforcement of an expensive Jim Crow law known as the Davis-Bacon Act.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3357


The prevailing wage law has always had the purpose of shielding local construction workers from competition from “outsiders.” 

The law is anticompetitive and costly to taxpayers. 

As currently implemented the law also, however, does not accurately measure the prevailing wage. Rather, it is biased upward to reflect what the *construction trades want to impose as a wage, rather than the wage that accurately prevails for a given trade in a given metropolitan area.*

Biases in the measurement of the federal “prevailing wage” *add 22% to the cost of labor on public construction projects and 9.91% to overall construction costs. As a result, taxpayers pay $8.6 billion a year more for public construction projects than they would have to pay if unbiased measures were used.*

The U.S. Department of Labor, which has the job of determining the prevailing wage, does not use the unbiased and statistically accurate data published by its Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Rather, it uses data published by its Wage and Hour Division (WHD), whose methods are generally unreliable & biased upward.


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## eastend (Jan 24, 2006)

so if PW is supposed to give the worker a good standard of living (regardless of the marketplace) why stop at $72,000? Why not make it $189,000, or $256,000? He11 why not an even million. Now, That's a decent salary for a great standard of living! I mean, it's the government right? they want everyone to be happy- and enjoy a great standard of living. And don't forget to throw in free health care, free gas, and free food; paying for that stuff is such an annoyance anyway.
Let's just forget about free enterprise, and incentive, and risk and reward- those things just get in the way!


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

Dorman Painting said:


> Let me tell you about unions, over at Ford Motor Company, which I've had four generations of my family work at, are drug addicts and drunks stumbling around the parking lot and plant. You can buy ANY drug of choice in the Ford Motor Company parking lot, or you can be like some in my family who choose to drink a six pack for lunch. Now Ford is scrambling like crazy to remain competitive because the UNIONS have overpriced their workers. Ford is now forced to offer buyout packages of 100 grand and basically hire a new, cheaper work force that starts out around 13 bucks an hour. So there's your Union lesson for the day partner.
> 
> Unions were a strong and positive influence at one time, they are rapidly on the decline and have harbored scum bag workers for years. There's certainly good union workers, but the number of unproductive union workers is unbelievable.
> 
> ...



I don't want to hear your myths.

In this area davis-bacon wages for a journeyman carpenter is about 45 dollars a hour including fringe benefits. We do heavy construction. Not that light small time I think I am the man ****. I don't or any other respectable trademan to be told by especially a small time painter that is obviously jealous that we are some how ripping off the taxpayers. We also do heavy commercial for the same rate. So yeah little boy that is the going rate. 

Go find that dried up housing market so you can go broke trying to sell a product nobody is buying. 

As for Brickie you can pay your guys 30 dollars a hour the Union Bricklayers still make more money. As for your racist implications look hard at the Labor Bureau stats African-Americans at 15% of the black population to be union. White males are 11%.


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