"Other" in California Prevailing Wage Creeps Higher

By Kevin Dayton
06/13/2016
The California Department of Industrial Relations does not determine state prevailing wage rates for construction trades by surveying contractors or workers or by using statistics gathered by the California Economic Development Department. By law, the state uses union agreements to set prevailing wages. Thus, the prevailing wage is always the “union wage.” And the geographical...

TAGS: California, Prevailing Wage

4th Edition Released: California Charter City Prevailing Wage Policies

By Kevin Dayton
06/06/2014
California city council members who believe local government authority spurs economic growth and job creation more effectively than centralized state control now have access to the newly-published 4th edition of Are Charter Cities Taking Advantage of State-Mandated Construction Wage Rate (“Prevailing Wage”) Exemptions? In 2009, an organization now known as the California Construction Compliance Group published the first edition...

TAGS: Are Charter Cities Taking Advantage of State Mandated Construction Wage Rate ("Prevailing Wage") Exemptions?, Prevailing Wage

Journal Article on Prevailing Wage Debunked, But Only Outside Academia

By Kevin Dayton
04/22/2014
A survey of academic journal articles in the fields of labor relations, labor economics, and labor history reveals scholarly consensus: union-backed public policies are good for the economy! No one ever rebuts these journal articles, so they must be true. And why would anyone assume otherwise? As a union official said about one of these...

TAGS: Are Charter Cities Taking Advantage of State Mandated Construction Wage Rate ("Prevailing Wage") Exemptions?, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Prevailing Wage, The Effect of Prevailing Wage Regulations on Contractor Bid Participation and Behavior: A Comparison of Palo Alto California with Four Nearby Prevailing Wage Municipalities, University of California Miguel Contreras Labor Program

Come to San Francisco for a Government-Mandated 35-Hour Workweek

By Kevin Dayton
03/25/2014
Where in the United States can you get a government-mandated 35-hour workweek, like the French national government adopted in 2000 (but modified in 2008)? Go to San Francisco and become a construction worker in the following trades on public works projects: Electrician: Inside Wireman Electrician: Cable Splicer Plumber: Air Conditioning & Refrigeration/HVAC – Service Work...

TAGS: Prevailing Wage, San Francisco

Unions “Using Political Leverage to Punish Those Exercising Rights” in California Constitution

By Kevin Dayton
10/29/2013
On October 13, 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 7, which cuts off state funds designated for construction to any California city that exercises its right under the California Constitution to establish its own policies concerning government-mandated wage rates (so-called “prevailing wages”) on contracts. This was a major victory for the State Building...

TAGS: California Constitution, Charter Cities, Jerry Brown, League of California Cities, Prevailing Wage, Senate Bill 7 (2013), Senate Bill 829 (2012), Senate Bill 922 (2011), State Building and Construction Trades Council of California

Union Influence in the California Democratic Party’s 2013 Convention Resolutions

By Kevin Dayton
04/16/2013
Can you guess which special interest group influenced many of the resolutions approved at the California Democratic Party convention on April 14, 2013? That’s right, unions. Here’s my annotated collection of the 2013 resolutions and the clean version of the resolutions on the California Democratic Party web site. (As the party web site says, “Click...

TAGS: California Construction Industry Labor-Management Cooperative Trust, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), California Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, Charter Cities, Democrats for Education Reform, Gloria Romero, Greenmail, Michelle Rhee, Prevailing Wage, Project Labor Agreements, Senate Bill 7 (2013), State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, StudentsFirst

Unions Will Control Mid-Sized Cities with California Voting Rights Act

By Kevin Dayton
04/02/2013
Unions firmly control the political agenda in California’s largest cities, but civic leaders and citizens in some of the state’s smaller cities are still resisting the union political machine. Some of these cities, with populations from 100,000 to 250,000, include Escondido, Oceanside, Murrieta, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Santa Clarita, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Clovis, Elk...

TAGS: Charter Cities, Prevailing Wage, Project Labor Agreements, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California

With Senate Bill 7, California Unions Advance Plot to Neuter City Charters

By Kevin Dayton
02/28/2013
More than 30 California cities are likely to defy top union officials by asking their citizens in 2014 to vote on enacting a “home rule” charter for local control. Cities want to free their purely municipal affairs from costly union-backed state mandates, for reasons revealed in these recent articles: Unions Rise to Defense of “Prevailing Wage” Rates Jeopardizing...

TAGS: Are Charter Cities Taking Advantage of State Mandated Construction Wage Rate ("Prevailing Wage") Exemptions?, Charter Cities, City of Costa Mesa - Measure V, Darrell Steinberg, League of California Cities, Prevailing Wage, Senate Bill 7 (2013), Senate Bill 829 (2012), Senate Bill 922 (2011), Smart Cities Prevail