Where I Stand — Guest columnist Terry Johnson: Work worth defending

Thursday, Aug. 8, 2002 | 8:40 a.m.

Editor's note: In August the Where I Stand column is written by guest writers. Today's column is written by Nevada Labor Commissioner Terry Johnson. He previously served in the state Office of Business Finance and was appointed to his current position in August 1999 by Gov. Kenny Guinn.

As labor commissioner, I oversee the enforcement of a number of labor laws, including child labor, apprenticeship training, claims for wages and public works/prevailing wage enforcement. The latter two consume most of our resources and as a result are of critical importance.

Each year thousands of claims are filed with my office by workers in private employment who have either not been paid their wages due, had monies illegally withheld from their wages, or were not paid for all time worked, including overtime.

In public works employment, workers are often aggrieved by contractors who have been awarded taxpayer-financed public works construction projects. These contractors, as a condition of the public works contract, agree beforehand to pay their workers not less than the wages that are prevailing in the community. Sadly, by the time the ink has dried on the contract, unscrupulous contractors begin exploring ways to enrich themselves financially at the expense of their workers.

For a contractor who bid and was awarded a public works project on the assumption that he would pay, say, $25 per hour to a skilled, certified craftsman, a public works contract can be extremely lucrative if he, instead, scours the valley's street corners for workers willing to accept, say, $5 per hour (and many will).

Using this example, multiply the $20-per-hour difference times the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours it will take to complete the project and one can easily see the potential financial windfall for the crooked contractor.

Said one contractor recently investigated by our agency, "(A contractor) can't make as much money in public works doing things the right way!" So a few thousand (known) workers are cheated each year by their employers. Is it worth maintaining a bureaucracy to police and punish such employers?

Consider the following:

To date, there have been regulatory successes. Aware of our challenges and the limited resources available with which to confront them, Gov. Kenny Guinn reminded me on my first day of work to "strive to make government better and not bigger." Revising antiquated labor laws and regulations, streamlining agency operations and financially penalizing cheating employers for the first time ever have helped us reduce a three-year claims backlog that we inherited from 2,700 to 650 (with the same amount of staff).

We must continue to send a message that in Nevada, we still believe that an honest day's work is still worth an honest day's pay.