Legislation to repeal West Virginia's 81-year-old Prevailing Wage Act (HB 4005) will be up for a passage vote in the House of Delegates today, after Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, quashed an amendment to instead suspend the wage-rate scales for five years.
Armstead ruled that the amendment, offered by Minority Leader Tim Miley, D-Harrison, and other Democrats, was not germane to the bill.
In addition to suspending prevailing wage rates for five years, Miley's amendment would have required the business and economic research bureaus at Marshall and West Virginia universities to conduct an economic impact study to measure the effect of suspending prevailing wage.
"It's terribly disheartening we didn't have the discussion among the members on the need to have an economic impact study," Miley said afterward.
It marked the fourth time this session that the House has rejected requests for studies to determine the impact of repealing prevailing wage. Delegate Isaac Sponaugle, D-Pendleton, had made three motions, two in the Government Organization Committee - the only committee that reviewed the bill - and one on the House floor to require such study, and all were rejected.
"I think they're afraid of what the economic impact indicators will reveal," Miley said Tuesday. "That there won't be any meaningful difference in the costs of these public construction projects but that there will be substantial difference in the wages paid to employees who work on these projects."
In offering the amendment, Miley noted, "I don't think anyone can honestly say we expect wages to go up if we repeal prevailing wage."
He said that makes it imperative to verify that the repeal is producing savings to taxpayers, adding, "If the economic impact study shows we did the right thing, we can come back in and complete the elimination of prevailing wage."
After conferring at the podium for about seven minutes, Armstead ruled that the amendment was not germane because the purpose of the bill is an outright repeal of the law.
Enacted during the Great Depression to prevent out-of-state contractors that pay low wages to itinerant workers from low-bidding local contractors for state-funded construction projects, prevailing wage has been a target of the Legislature for the past two sessions.
Last session, legislators compromised on a bill to repeal prevailing wage, amending it to instead move authority for determining the wage rates from the state Division of Labor to WorkForce West Virginia and to eliminate prevailing wage for projects costing $500,000 or less.
However, WorkForce West Virginia researchers quickly drew the ire of legislative leaders with their decision to survey more than 3,700 state contractors to determine regional wage scales, a study that ultimately did not produce the reduction in wage rates that leadership had sought. As early as last July, Senate President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, began discussing prospects for an outright repeal of the law this session.
As part of the dispute over the wage rate calculations, the Joint Committee on Government and Finance voted last June not to extend the old prevailing wage rates, creating a three-month gap last year when prevailing wage was not in effect.
While only a handful of state-funded projects were bid out during the lapse, Miley said they did not produce significant cost savings - "Certainly, nothing like the 'five schools for the price of three' rhetoric," he said.
"The data doesn't back up the claim of taxpayer savings," Miley added.
The prevailing wage repeal bill advanced from the Government Organization Committee Jan. 20 on a party-line 15-9 vote and is expected to pass the House with a similar partisan vote.
Prevailing wage repeal is moving in tandem with a Senate bill to make West Virginia a right-to-work state, giving workers in union shops the option to not pay union dues (SB 1). That bill, which passed the Senate Jan. 21 on a party-line 17-16 vote, will be the subject of a House Judiciary Committee public hearing in House chambers at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304 348-1220 or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.