Where I Stand: Prevailing wage law good for workers and Silver State

Saturday, May 3, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

NEXT YEAR WILL MARK 50 years since I was discharged from the Marines and received my journeyman's union card as an ironworker. This experience has always influenced my positive feelings toward trade union people and the important role they play in building a strong and modern United States. They earn their pay, and they construct better dams, pipelines, plants, bridges, roads and buildings than workers in any other nation.

I must admit that their leadership sometimes isn't of the same high quality as the products the workers bring forth. A good example is their union's shortsighted view of campaigning for nuclear waste being dumped in Nevada. Despite the knowledge that the deadly waste will provide very few jobs for them, they continue their undercutting of a majority of Nevadans, who are concerned about the quality of life for them and their children. Not only do they undercut the people of Nevada, they make fools of themselves and appear more like selfish children who don't give a damn about anybody else. Evidently, a few lousy jobs mean more to them than do the health and welfare of our community.

Just as narrow as the view of a few trade unions wanting nuke waste is another attempt by the Reno and Las Vegas chambers of commerce to repeal Nevada's prevailing wage law. Such action will not only hurt our craftsmen but, in the long run, will hurt large numbers of businesses in the Silver State. Several studies in states where prevailing wage laws have been repealed show the damage that can be suffered. This doesn't seem to bother a few chamber leaders who believe anytime they can punish workers, they will benefit financially. This just isn't so.

Twelve years ago, one of the worst Legislatures in Nevada history attempted to destroy the prevailing wage law. This column had to point out that it's a good law that requires state and public works construction contractors pay workers the wage rates prevailing in the local area. Why should our workers be paid less than the going wage rate?

As a taxpayer, this writer expects the workers who live in Clark County to be paid wages adequate to continue our healthy economy, care for their families and pay a share of state and local taxes. The prevailing wage law encourages the hiring of local skilled workers to construct projects paid for by our taxes. Without the law, you will see a flood of low-paid workers come in from out of state, to be paid our tax dollars and then leave.

There is also the possibility of contractors eager to make a few bucks bringing in out-of-state, semi-skilled workers, who remain here after the job and collect unemployment and welfare dollars. This is double trouble, because our own skilled workers will be unemployed and our tax dollars will be eaten up by outsiders.

How about the end product built by low-paid construction workers brought in for a job? Personally, the highly skilled workers of Nevada have my vote when it comes to quality building. Anything less than quality work is unacceptable when my tax dollars are being spent and my family and friends will be using the structure.

The prevailing wage law, better known at the federal level as the Davis-Bacon Act, was passed in 1931 and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover. Both Davis and Bacon were Republicans who sponsored the law to guarantee fair bidding practices for contractors. Too many contractors were underbidding jobs, paid for with federal dollars, by paying laborers substandard wages. The low salaries of workers had become the cutting edge for the cutthroat bidders. It was hurting the communities, workers, taxpayers and the projects.

The Nevada prevailing wage law, oftentimes referred to as the "little Davis-Bacon Act," has served Nevada and many other states well during several decades. The foresight and good sense of Sen. Jim Davis and Rep. Robert Bacon shouldn't be cast aside by uninformed or shortsighted legislators in Carson City.

Don't try to fix Nevada's "little Davis-Bacon Act" -- it ain't broke.

A study, reported in 1995 by Peter Philips, Garth Mangum, Norm Waitzman and Anne Yeagle at the University of Utah, shows what happened after the Beehive State repealed its prevailing wage law in 1981.

* In Utah, whose experience was examined most closely, the state budget has not benefited from repeal of the prevailing wage law. The repeal helped drive down construction earnings and, as a result, the state has lost substantial income tax and sales tax revenues. In the decade before the 1981 repeal in Utah, construction worker earnings averaged about 125 percent of average nonagricultural earnings. By 1993, construction worker earnings had fallen to 103 percent of the average earnings for Utah workers. This decline in earnings is a result of both lower wages and a subsequent shift to a less-skilled construction labor force.

* Also in Utah, the size of total cost overruns on state road construction has tripled in the decade since repeal in comparison to the previous decade. The shift to a less-skilled labor force -- lowering labor productivity along with wages -- and the greater frequency of cost overruns have lessened any possible savings in public works construction costs associated with the repeal.

Between 1979 and 1988, a total of nine states, including Utah, repealed their prevailing wage laws. The Utah economists, when viewing all of the nine states, concluded:

* Looking at all the states, and controlling for a general downward trend in real construction earnings, variations in state unemployment rates and regional differences in wages, repeals have cost construction workers in the nine states at least $1,477 per year in earnings, on average (in 1994 dollars). The costs may eventually be higher as the effects of the more recent repeals mature, driving wages and training down further.

* Controlling for a general downward trend in the amount of construction training, variations in state unemployment rates and regional differences in training availability, the nine state repeals have reduced construction training in those states by 40 percent.

* Minority representation in construction training programs has fallen even faster than have the training programs in repeal states. Until the various state repeals, minority apprenticeship participation mirrored the minority percentage of each state's population. After repeal, minorities became significantly under-represented in construction apprenticeship programs.

* Occupational injuries in construction rose by 15 percent where state prevailing wage laws were repealed.

Like I said before, Nevada's prevailing wage law shouldn't be repealed, altered or gutted. It's served us and the workers well for many years.