May 27, 2021
March and April saw two news events involving Michigan’s now-defunct prevailing wage law. The first involved legislation introduced March 25 that would reinstate the costly wage mandate on government contracts in the Great Lake State. The second involved a court decision not to retry a former state representative who had been charged with attempted extortion and soliciting a bribe in exchange for voting against a bill to repeal the law. Interestingly, both stories cross paths with an Indiana-specific paper the Mackinac Center has repeatedly criticized.
Prevailing wage laws artificially inflate the cost of public construction projects by imposing local union prices on government-financed assets such as roads, buildings and parks. Unions vociferously oppose the law’s repeal and supported a cottage industry of publications claiming with questionable supporting evidence that there are few positive impacts of repealing these laws, and some negative ones.
Editor s Note: This is the second piece in a series of articles examining the effect of repealing prevailing wage mandates. The first one can be read here.
The effect of repealing prevailing wage mandates, which require governments to pay union pay rates for construction projects, remains hotly debated. While many observers express concern about the implications for workers, others wonder if (and how) repeal affects the cost of public sector construction projects. Some advocates claim that repeal lowers the cost of infrastructure projects, including school construction.
But a report from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute which I have previously critiqued claims that this did not happen in Indiana,
OFLC Announces New Application for Prevailing Wage
Determination
The Department of Labor s Office of Foreign Labor
Certification (OFLC) revised its Form ETA-9141, Application for
Prevailing Wage Determination, for use beginning May 3, 2021.
As of 8 a.m. on May 3, 2021, OFLC will only accept prevailing
wage applications submitted using the new form. OFLC will reject,
without further review, prevailing wage paper applications
submitted using the current version of the form. A stakeholder
webinar will be held on April 27, 2021, at 2 p.m. ET (2 hours).
Details:
OFLC announcement,
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor (scroll down to
announcement on April 2, 2021)
Webinar meeting link,
https://usdol.webex.com/usdol/j.php?MTID=mdecd014fcb2a1d00e8ae503dca9890d4