Home › Forums › Financial Markets/Economics › San Diego City Council passes prevailing wage ordinance for city contractors
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CDMA ENG.
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June 19, 2013 at 4:23 PM #20683June 19, 2013 at 4:58 PM #763041
bearishgurl
ParticipantTom 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!
June 19, 2013 at 5:23 PM #763044Allan from Fallbrook
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
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).
Costs here, like Chicago and NYC, will skyrocket.
June 19, 2013 at 5:31 PM #763045Participant[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]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).
Costs here, like Chicago and NYC, will skyrocket.[/quote]
So, what is the solution, Allan? Is there a happy medium? I’ve searched many local contractors’ licenses on the CSLB. It seems to be a struggle for a lot of them to keep up their worker’s comp premiums and minimum bond … even if they’ve been licensed for many years. Should the ROP programs just continue to train and turn out students for the trades only to have them compete with unlicensed “contractors” and undocumented immigrants?
In the absence of a prevailing minimum wage for each trade, it becomes a race to the bottom to see who is willing to work cheapest.
June 19, 2013 at 5:32 PM #763046spdrun
ParticipantAre 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?
From my experience in NYC, some of those “undocumented immigrants” do a lot better work than good ‘ol American unionized slobs.
June 19, 2013 at 9:25 PM #763056ParticipantBG: First off, you’re equating a lack of prevailing wage with unlicensed contractors. This isn’t correct. I work plenty of projects, largely Commercial with Merit (non-union) labor, that are successful, in terms of on-time and on-budget. The majority are GMP (guaranteed maximum price) or Cost Plus contracts in a Design/Build project. All costs, including Design (architects & engineering), Labor and Materials, are completely transparent – the owner/client knows going in what they’re looking at in terms of project costs. You add a reasonable Contingency that contemplates Change Orders and everyone involved adopts a good faith approach to contract delivery.
The key element is good faith. You work with unions you find out about bad faith dealings right from the jump. I’ve worked dozens upon dozens of jobs using labor from the union halls and have yet to work on a single project where the union(s) didn’t try to screw us. Between work stoppages for arbitrary “changed conditions” (this tactic is used to try and jam Change Order after Change Order down your throat), to calling in OSHA for “unsafe conditions” (one notable case involved a single dead rat onsite that was deemed a “health and safety hazard” to a work crew of large, burly carpenters), to having a shop steward idle a crew of welders because the temp inside the building was “excessively high” (it was 74 degrees).
These guys go into every single project with the attitude of how much of a shakedown can they perform. They could care less about delivering a well-constructed building that’s on schedule and on-budget. In the major metro markets, like Chicago, SF and NYC, they’re politically connected and have been pulling this shit for years. We actually have a budget line for “Asshole Tax”, which is the premium you attach when you work in these markets.
BTW, I am not anti-union by disposition. My grandfather on my mom’s side was a union shop steward for Ford Motor out of Dearborn.
However, you work more than a few projects with these guys and the scales fall from your eyes pretty quick.
June 20, 2013 at 8:33 AM #763065no_such_reality
Participant[quote]
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?
[/quote]
What a red herring. None of the above could compete on a city contract.
The solution to two laws being broken isn’t passing a third law.
Finally, supporting union scale laws and living wage are two different things. Frankly, I think our society as a whole would benefit greatly from the downsizing of our consumption that a living wage getting apply to retail and restaurants.
In San Diego, that would be about $25/hr. Living wage is typically derived from the equating housing expenses for a one bedroom apartment to being 1/3rd of your income. IMHO, it would put a massive dent in the sprawl of Starbucks, fast food joints and Target-marts littering the landscape.
It also would probably create a very French like unemployment in our younger population and a Greek like blackmarket of work.
It would solve the issue of “subsidizing” Walmarts for their employees being removing them from being partially on the public dole to fully on the public dole.
June 20, 2013 at 3:42 PM #763102CDMA ENG
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
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?
[/quote]Some economists call that race “Free Market Forces”.
As the Human Torch from the Fanatastic Four would say “Flame On!”
CE
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