Tom Lemmon of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council said costs will be held down because the pool of bidders will increase. He said 500 to 1,000 contractors won’t bid on city work now because they pay prevailing wages and don’t want to be undercut by companies that give less money to employees…
SD Squatter, it this actually newsworthy or is it an attempt to incite folks to jump on the bandwagon in the race to the bottom?
As it should be. Are these reputable licensed contractors all bad because they pay a “living wage” in a town where there is are undocumented immigrants available everywhere to undercut them who have NO workers comp insurance, little to no tools of the their own and no formal training whatsoever? How is a well-trained Joe6P American Journeyman supposed to make a living? They have rent/mortgage to pay and have to eat and put gas in their truck, just like YOU![/quote]
BG: This is a pretty knee-jerk response on your part. It isn’t as though there are only two choices here: “Living wage” or “undocumented illegals”.
I’ve been doing Military/Federal construction since the late 1980s and I can tell you that Prevailing Wage (Public Works projects) and Union Scale (Commercial/Metro projects) are some of the most overpriced, poorly done and corrupt projects going – the SF Bay Bridge “retrofit” following the Loma Prieta quake being Exhibit A.
These projects are larded with pork, kickbacks and all sorts of “giveaways” to family members, political supporters, etc.
As to “living wage”, well you haven’t lived till you’ve spent $125/hr on a union welder (+ fringes!), whom you don’t even get for a full eight hour work day (due to union work rules, union-mandated breaks and safety meetings).
