The act itself is quite short and refers to “excavation projects” multiple times. The stated intention of the rule is to maintain road quality by not allowing utility companies to get some cut-rate hacks to patch the pavement after they’ve dug it up. The trouble stems from the broad interpretation by the Department of Labor. They’re saying that a “covered excavation project” doesn’t require any excavation at all due to the word “use”. Rather, if you have to be on the road in any sense then that’s “use”, and if that locality requires a permit for the work you’re doing then it’s prevailing wage.
Some jurisdictions require a road work permit any time you’re doing work inside the boundaries of the ROW. I had a conversation with one city’s engineering department about road work permits, and their policy is you need a permit any time you have “construction equipment” in the ROW, and for that purpose their feeling is that our cable placer and splice trucks count but vans and pickups don’t. Some towns explicitly only want a permit if you’re cutting pavement. Some rural towns don’t have any permit process at all. This variability from town to town and county to county creates a mish mash of situations where you may or may not be required to pay prevailing wage for the same work in different places. That one where vans don’t count could mean you don’t pay prevailing wage if you force everybody to work from ladders or hooks, so arguably that creates a perverse incentive to compromise safety. I’m not blaming communism. I’d love to hear their real rationale for that interpretation, but I think most likely someone was worried about potential loopholes and doesn’t really understand how their DOL rules will interact with the rules of the DOT and countless county and local highway departments. I.E.: Plain old dumb stuff, not commie stuff. -Adam From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Steve Jones Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2023 3:40 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Prevailing Wage Was that a mistake or intentional? With all the taxpayer funded welfare going out to the ISPs, I can see a "well meaning bureaucrat" intentionally putting the wording in to get some of the welfare back to those workers controlling the "means of production" well meaning bureaucrat - commie means of production - commie speak On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 8:10 AM <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: There’s a new rule in NY State: https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2023/a5608 https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/12/enforcement-guidance-roadway-excavation-quality-assurance-act-update-3.pdf 'a "Covered excavation project" shall mean construction work for which a permit may be issued to a contractor or subcontractor of a utility company by the state, a county or a municipality to use, excavate, or open a street. ' Intentionally or not, they put the word “use” in that sentence. The DOL issued that enforcement guidance saying it means any time you are working “in, on, or under” a street. Basically, if you’re working as a contractor on a job that needs any kind of permit from a state, local, or county to work in their ROW then you have to pay prevailing wage. That’s regardless of whether it’s a state job or not. This does not apply to in-house employees or work outside the ROW. This is going to cause some waves for a lot of us in NY State. If I can get the “prevailing” $54/hour as a lineman on almost every job, then I might quit this “Network Engineering” thing and just be a builder. So where do federal and state labor departments get their data to determine “prevailing wage”? I have never met a tradesman of any sort who made prevailing wage outside of when the government mandates it, and I have never understood how it was “prevailing” if nobody seems to actually get that wage. Is it a selection bias issue like maybe they’re only getting data from large union shops? -Adam -- AF mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
