Stormwater project wage committee maintains previous decision

A committee establishing wages for storm water repairs along Worrell Drive in Jasper approved the non-union wage scale presented by Associated Builders and Contractors of Indiana again.

A wage determination committee decided to go with the wages presented by Associated Builders and Contractors in January. This prompted a lawsuit from the Southwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council alleging the committee didn’t follow the law in approving those wages. (Story here)

The meeting today abolished that committee’s decision.

Under current Indiana law — a bill repealing Indiana’s common wage law has been passed by the House of Representatives and is being considered by the State Senate — 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 (or the mode) 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. At today’s wager hearing, Ken Overton represented the Southwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council and Jennifer Stuecker represented Associated Builders and Contractors while Mike Witte, Dave Hurm, and Jerry Apple were appointed for the city, county, and stormwater department.

The decision by the committee is effective for the next 90 days for all public projects that meet the requirements for a wage determination.

At today’s hearing, Overton presented the committee with the average wages of a skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled laborer. The job classification that would be most prevalent on the Worrell Drive storm water project. According to Overton, in the past year those positions have performed about 39,000 hours of work in the county and been paid about a $1 million in wages. The numbers were accumulated by a survey of union shops in the county of which there are 18.

Stuecker presented the committee with a cumulative overview based on the number of contractors in the county and insinuated the hours worked at the wages she represented were more prevalent than the union wages. She told the committee that of the 152 contractors in the county over 86 percent were non-union. Based on the amount of work in the county, she advocated these rates were the prevailing wages.

According to Overton, the wages represented by the union were the mode as per the state law. Stuecker insisted that her wage was the most common wage based on proprietary information regarding hours worked by the non-union shops. She did not supply the committee with those amounts.

At a motion by Stuecker, the wage committee approved the Associated Builders and Contractors wages.

According to City Attorney Renee Kabrick, she wouldn’t be surprised if the union challenges the determination.

With the common wage bill moving through the state legislature, City Engineer Chad Hurm was unsure how the city would proceed if the union did challenge today’s decision. He was concerned about completing the estimated $400,000 project replacing storm water sewers on Worrell Drive between 13th and 15th streets during this year’s construction season if it was delayed much longer.