West Virginia: Flagman Wanted- $32/Hour
According to The State Journal:
Fairly and accurately calculating the prevailing wage is a policy that needs immediate action.
Story By Jonathan Miller
New road construction, road improvements, school construction and all other infrastructure projects on average cost 30 percent more in West Virginia than in neighboring states.
Why? West Virginia's prevailing wage.
The prevailing wage isn't the minimum wage or the wage that we pay workers at the sate Division of Highways. This wage is paid to workers with a private construction company that contracts with the government to do public improvement projects, also known as contractors.
West Virginia's labor commissioner skews the calculation of the prevailing wage to benefit labor union contractors. This is done through a convoluted wage survey process.
To skew the prevailing wage in the favor of union contractors, the labor commissioner accepts only flawless surveys from non-union contractors, which are usually pages long while union contractors simply fill out one form. Further, if a non-union contractor does complete a survey correctly, the wage can be accepted only if the wage is at or above the wage paid by a similar union contractor. Since unionized businesses historically hire fewer people, they can afford to pay each worker more than non-union businesses. Thus, the taxpayers of West Virginia pay 30 percent more to build a new school or road than neighboring states.
Of course, we don't want people to make low wages; however, we want wages to be fair and accurate. Given that roughly 10 percent of the construction industry is unionized, it is unfair and inaccurate to base the state's prevailing wage from an extreme minority in the industry.
To put the cost of the prevailing wage into perspective, let's look at the lowest class of laborer on a highway project. That class is the Class III laborer. A Class III laborer for a construction company makes nearly $32 per hour at the current prevailing wage. A Class III laborer is what we know as the flagman... click to continue.
