Union files injunction against City of Jasper over wages

A stormwater project in Jasper has drawn the ire of a building trades group after a wage determination hearing in January established a non union wage for the project.

The Southwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council and Jasper residents Matt Leinenbach and Mark Clery filed an injunction on January 23 based on a decision made at the January 7th wage determination hearing. The injunction has stopped a scheduled stormwater repair project along Worrel Drive between 13th and 15th streets.

The Southwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council represents several labor organizations in southwest Indiana, including in Dubois County.

Under current Indiana law — a bill repealing Indiana’s common wage law has been sent to the Indiana House of Representatives for consideration — public projects expected to exceed $350,000 are subject to the common wage law. A common wage committee hearing is held to determine the prevailing wage in a county. That determination is made by taking the most commonly occurring wage in the county and establishing the wages for the job around that determination.

The five person committee consists of a representative from the trades union, a nonunion representative, and three locally appointed representatives. Only four individuals were present for the January 7 meeting; Ken Overton for the Southwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, Fred Hollinden was appointed by the stormwater board, Dave Fuhs was appointed by the Jasper Common Council and Mike Witte was appointed by the county commissioners. The representative for the Associated Builders and Contractors (non union) did not attend the meeting however they supplied information regarding their views on prevailing wages in the county.

During the proceeding, Ken Overton presented the wages and hours paid by the union for the primary trades for the stormwater project. He stated that those two classifications, laborers and operators, had completed 58,530.5 man-hours and paid $1,582,928.09 in wages in 2014.

He also pointed out that a common wage determination committee had adopted these wages for five projects in Huntingburg on January 2.

Dave Fuhs stated during the hearing that he felt this was a low amount of man-hours for the amount of projects going on in the county. “What Kenny (Overton) presented represents about 28 man-years,” he said. “Though it is a lot of hours, when I think about it in terms of man-years, I don’t know how to compare that.”

He pointed out that he felt there were likely hundreds of people working on projects throughout the county and the union seemed to be a small sampling of that work.

After a motion to adopt the union rates presented by Overton failed for lack of a second, the board voted 3 to 1 for the wage rates presented by Associated Builders and Contractors.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff claims the committee acted in violation of the statute by establishing wages that failed to follow the law and use wages that were not the most common for each wage category.

The Jasper Stormwater Board will discuss options in regards to the lawsuit at an executive meeting Wednesday, February 18. A decision on how to proceed will be made during a public meeting.

According to City Attorney Renee Kabrick, the lawsuit will likely lead to the the stormwater board scheduling another wage hearing.

The last time the City of Jasper was sued over wage determination was when the Sports Complex was built. The Greater Jasper Consolidated School Corporation’s efforts to rebuild the high school gymnasium were held up by a similar lawsuit in 2012.