Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Labor leaders: Tax hike among options to boost construction jobs

Construction workers

Steve Marcus

A construction worker is shown in this file photo from early 2008, when Las Vegas was starting to feel the effects of the Great Recession.

Click to enlarge photo

The Legislative Building is reflected in the window of a bar and restaurant across the street on the fifth day of the 2011 legislative session Friday, February 11, 2011 in Carson City.

CARSON CITY – Higher taxes are needed to help recovery of the depressed construction industry, labor officials said Friday.

“Everybody is pussy-footing around. You need to look for new revenue,” retired construction worker Pat Sanderson told the Senate Select Committee on Economic Growth and Employment.

He echoed the testimony of Danny Thompson, director of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, who said, “there is no question there is a need for new revenue. There are too many tax exemptions. Everybody should pay the same.”

Las Vegas contractor Wade Pope said he's unhappy about the state’s prevailing wage law. He said the prevailing wage for a construction worker who sweeps the floor or digs ditches is $42.92 in Nevada while the same salary in Arizona is $15.52 an hour.

That’s $143,000 to be included in a contract bid to do a menial job, Pope said. “That’s incomprehensible.”

The committee, headed by Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, is trying to come up with a quick plan to get the state financially off the deck.

Thompson said the state labor commissioner sets the prevailing wage after surveying every county, adding that the level is different from area to area. He said it may be higher in Clark County than in a rural area.

And a worker who is earning $14-$15 an hour isn’t getting health insurance and other benefits, he said.

The prevailing wage that will be set this year will probably be lower.

“When the economy goes down, the prevailing wage goes down,” Thompson said.

Randy Soltero of the Sheet Metal Workers Local 88 in Southern Nevada said a retraining program was started to teach the unemployed to do home energy audits. A bill passed in a prior Legislature was aimed at requiring an energy audit when any home was sold, but he said the Legislative Commission interpreted it differently.

Now there are only “clip board audits” that check such visible problems as a broken window, Soltero said.

There were complaints about out-of-state workers coming into the state, taking jobs from Nevadans. Darren Enns of the Southern Nevada Labor Trade Council said these workers get their paychecks Friday and drive out of town.

That’s not doing the Nevada economy any good, he said.

Sanderson said an Olive Garden is being built in Carson City by an out-of-state contractor and out-of-state workers.

In advocating for more tax revenue, Sanderson said “If we don’t come up with more money it’s going to decimate the whole state of Nevada.”

Thompson has been coming to the Legislature for 30 years, first as an assemblyman from Clark County and then as a lobbyist. Every session, he said, there is continued talk about economic diversification but the state has continued to rely on the casino industry.

He said low taxes do not attract new development. If that was the case, there would be plenty of new development, he said.

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