Two significant construction related bills survived recent “cut off” date in the legislature and will move on. Meanwhile some notable bills died by missing the cut off dates. More on those later, but first…
Prevailing wage escalator legislation, SB 5061, passed out of the State Senate on a party line vote. The bill says that except for small works roster projects or residential construction, public works contracts must be adjusted annually, based on the contract date, to provide that such wage is not less than the latest prevailing wage rate.
AGC is opposed to this bill because of the unpredictability of prevailing wage increases due to the way they are set by L&I. Among prevailing wage increases that have occurred in various counties recently are highway stripers, 73%; divers who work on WSDOT projects on the water, 38%; general carpenters, 53%.
“These sorts of increases are not the majority, but the fact is that the way we set prevailing wage makes the rate unpredictable,” AGC Chief Lobbyist Jerry VanderWood said in testimony. “Some contractors, particularly small and those less capitalized, could be trapped by unpredictable and large increases in the prevailing wage.”
AGC proposed an amendment in the Senate and will do so when the bill is considered in the House, that says any increase over 5% would be a good cause justification for the contractor at any level affected by the increase to require a financial adjustment to the contract.
Another bill, SSB 6302, would have prohibited a contractor or subcontractor from engaging more than two independent contractors to perform the same type of finishing work (drywall, flooring, tiling, painting, and glazier and glasswork) at the same time on a public works project. If more than two are engaged, all individuals performing finishing work would have had to be covered workers for the purposes of prevailing wage and workers’ compensation.
However, AGC worked with the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Steve Conway, and Labor representatives on a different approach, which was adopted by the Senate. The bill now does not include a hard limit on independent contractors. It requires L&I to investigate if individuals performing finishing work have been misclassified as independent contractors when a contractor or subcontractor engages three or more independent contractors to perform the same type of finishing work at the same time on a public works project. So extra scrutiny from L&I regarding potential misclassification, but no overall prohibition.
The substitute bill passed the Senate and moves to the House.
Other bills (some good, some bad) have died because they didn’t progress far enough at this point. Among these dead bills are:
- SB 5572/HB 1723, requiring PLAs on school construction (AGC opposed).
- SB 2273, regarding embodied carbon requirements (AGC opposed).
- HB 2372/SB 6067, requiring the continuation of health care coverage for workers on workers comp timeless (AGC opposed).
- SB 6345, fixing the “2 CBA” problem in prevailing wage setting (AGC supported),
- SB 5176, prompt pay (AGC supported).
For more information, contact AGC Chief Lobbyist Jerry VanderWood.