Prevailing wage rates determined by the U.S. Dept. of Labor have a profound impact on construction. In 2003 they'll gain an even greater significance as the DOL conducts the first intensive federal wage survey of all Michigan's skilled construction trades in all segments of work.

The survey will have a direct impact on the take-home pay of thousands of Michigan's building trades workers. The process will get started with two meetings slated this month. They will be led by DOL representatives, and include contractors and building trades representatives.

"Every facet of construction in the state will be covered by the survey," said Ed Hartfield of the Operating Engineers Local 324 Labor-Management Education Committee. "The survey is including - but not limited to - heavy, highway, building, mechanical, electrical, and residential. It will be far more extensive than federal wage surveys conducted in the past."

Hartfield said nothing this comprehensive has ever been attempted in Michigan. Its results will be crucial because contractors often rely upon the prevailing wage rates published by the DOL in assembling their bids for projects. Having DOL prevailing wage rates that properly reflect union wage and fringe benefit levels not only puts money in the pockets of unionized building trades workers on federal jobs, it helps to assure that union wages and fringes will be the basis for bids.

Experts say Michigan probably will not have a chance to obtain another DOL wage survey of this scope for a decade, if not longer. Mistakes caused by insufficient or inadequate information may go uncorrected for a very long time.

Organized labor and their contractors are being asked to work together in collecting information for the survey. Sufficient data must be submitted to document that at least 51% of the wages and fringe benefits in a given region are union scale. If the organized construction industry can't do that - and if its data doesn't hit or exceed the 51% mark - the DOL's published rates will not reflect current collective bargaining wages and fringe benefit levels. As a result, both signatory contractors and local union workers will be negatively affected.

Even organized contractors who specialize in commercial or industrial projects, and avoid bidding federally funded work, will be affected because they play an important role in the survey process. The DOL first uses nonfederal work to determine a region's prevailing wage schedule. This includes private as well as publicly funded work. Data from federal public works projects are only used if data from non-federal projects in a specific construction category is unavailable.

The survey's conclusions will impact all organized contractors no matter what kind of construction they perform. Prevailing wage and benefits rates that are mistakenly set too low will distort the construction market, often to the benefit of open shop competitors. It will become increasingly difficult to assemble contract-winning bids.

The meetings were scheduled Jan. 23 in Livonia and Jan. 24 in Perry. We'll keep you updated on how the building trades can help themselves by making the prevailing wage survey better.