Ohio: Columbus Schools May Tighten Wage Policy
According to The Columbus Dispatch:
The Columbus Board of Education is poised to begin requiring companies bidding on construction projects to meet the same wage rules that have resulted in two lawsuits against Franklin County in the past 2 1/2 months.
The requirement disqualifies companies that have had more than three "prevailing-wage violations" in the past decade, even if they are the lowest bidder for the job. Prevailing wages are pay scales set by the state of Ohio for various construction professions, based on what union construction workers make.
Many of the wage complaints are filed by union representatives and can be caused by minor accounting errors, resulting in small dollar settlements to the workers, said Scott Teepe, president of TP Mechanical Contractors, based in Cincinnati.
But if a company has three of those findings in a decade, it's going to be locked out of any Columbus City Schools building projects.
"It's a union tactic to disqualify companies. We think it's wrong. It's going to cost the taxpayers, ultimately, money," said Teepe, whose non-union company bid $215,000 less than the nearest competitor on plumbing and ventilation work for the county's new baseball stadium, Huntington Park, but lost the contract...click to continue.
