The prevailing wage law in West Virginia was originally enacted in 1933 and amended in 1961. The bill originated from the national Davis-Bacon Act that was established in 1936 amid the Great Depression to preserve jobs of federal projects for the unemployed regional workers. The law recommends the legal prevailing wage payment of at least two thousand dollars on all public construction contracts (Dean 6; and Kelsay 18). The Department of Labor in West Virginia State determines the hourly prevailing wage rates in all the counties for each occupation. Therefore, the prevailing wage can vary concerning occupation and county. However, the latest attempts to rescind the prevailing wage law in West Virginia that saw the governor veto the right to work and wage bills are premised upon the claim that the repeal will save money on the total costs of construction and will bolster state and local budgets. The Senate's Republican legislatures overruled the governor's rejection.
Currently, the workers in West Virginia are entitled to join labor unions of their choices at their workplaces. If the Right to Work bill is enacted into law, it will grant the workers the continued freedom to choose the labor unions one wishes to be associated with in the state of West Virginia without paying any union fees (Dean 9). Thus, the Right to Work sought to allow the workers to stop paying fees to the labor unions while still representing the interests of the employees and further weaken the unions. The unions would act as a representative of all the workers who are already registered as well as those workers who are not yet registered in a union in a given timeframe. The right to work law would contradict the Taft-Hartley Act that was enacted in 1947 and made union membership a prerequisite for employment.
The Right to Work and the Prevailing Wage Repeal bills had the prospects of inspiring the much needed economic growth in the state of West Virginia. The state ranks near the bottom in most job-related categories. The Right to work Law intended to give workers the freedom over their wages and consequently making the state more attractive to the investors (Dean 9). The potential of the Right to work law creating more jobs is supported by the data in the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows that the law added one million more jobs in a span of four years between 2010 and 2014 as compared to the states without the right to work laws (Kelsay 18). The data further pinpoints that during the same timeframe, the right to work states registered approximately ten percent increase in manufacturing jobs. The increase was twice as much than for the growth witnessed in the states with no right to work laws. Considering that West Virginia lost over one thousand manufacturing jobs within that four-year period, the right to work and wages repeal bills were, in essence, trying to create an attractive investment destination in West Virginia and inspire job creation to the largely unemployed population.
The right to work and prevailing wage law tends to stabilize and support the labor markets and local economies. The bill aimed to support the West Virginia's local construction markets and shield the government from the unscrupulous contractors and work. The current labor and wage laws in various states have been shown to encourage job creation of highly skilled labor force in construction, provide economic incentives for value construction, enhance safety in the workplace, increase apprenticeship training and provide employment opportunities in construction (Kelsay 22). Moreover, the prevailing wage regulations have been shown to induce contractors to provide pension benefits, voluntary benefits, and health insurance that would not be provided in construction. The current wage bill would increase the productivity of the unionize workers in West Virginia. The productivity of the workers affiliated with labor unions has been shown to be seventeen-to-fifty-two percent higher than that of non-union labor. Other studies have shown that construction worker productivity is twenty-five percent higher in the states with prevailing wage statutes than in the states that do not have one (Kelsay 22). Furthermore, the law would establish lower wage rates that would consequently prompt the contractors in West Virginia to substitute capital and other inputs for labor. Thus, the right to work and wage repeal bills would mitigate the effect of higher costs of labor on the total costs of construction. Finally, the right to work and prevailing wage intended to generate more spending and more tax income for the state and local governments (22).
Governor Earl Ray Tomblin vetoed both the Right to Work and Prevailing Wage Bills and sent a letter to the president of the Senate expressing his dissatisfaction of the Workplace Freedom Act. I suppose that Governor Tomblin did not believe that making West Virginia a right to work state would neither create employment opportunities nor improve the economy. Tomblin noted that since he became the governor in six years ago, West Virginia has attracted new investments and expansion projects that amounted to more than ten billion dollars (MetroNews Staff para. 4). I also think that the governor did not want a situation whereby the bill would further lower the minimum wages of the West Virginia workers since he had assented law in the previous year that exempted projects less than five hundred thousand dollars and set the precedence for calculating the prevailing wages of the workers in West Virginia. This is reflected in Tomblin’s remarks where he stated that the state does not need to pass bills that reduce the wages of West Virginia workers and have insignificant impacts to stimulate economic growth (MetroNews Staff para. 9). I also tend to think that the governor rejected the Right to work bill because he did not want the state’s citizens to experience further pay cut after he had negotiated a compromise deal in the previous year. Lastly, I think that Governor Tomblin vetoed the right to work and repeal of the wage bills because he wanted to protect the unions. As Graves (2) remarks, the two bills would have anti-union manifestations that would weaken the unions more so when it comes to the collective bargain procedures where they would lack finances.
As things stand now, the West Virginia Senate passed the right to work bill that will come into effect in May 2016. The billionaire Koch brothers are allegedly famous for using their petrochemical fortune to fund anti-labor unions laws and fuel anti-labor rhetoric, hence weakening them. The brothers are principal players and have the backing of the enduring free market notion that implies unions curtail jobs and are bad for the economy. The Koch brothers are affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Americans for Prosperity and the State Policy Network, which they bankroll (Graves 2). Such organizations continuously advocate for the right to work and the prevailing wage repeals laws. The organizations coordinate the defense of attacks on the rights of workers as witnessed in their efforts in conjunction with other Koch operatives in the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Friedrich’s case.
The Koch-fueled alliances front for the interests of CEOs like the Koch’s and corporations, whose legislative agenda assists the rich in the society to acquire more wealth. The Koch-funded alliances push the legislative agenda through the right to work bills and the Prevailing Wage Repeal bills (Graves 3). The two legislations that have now gained ground in at least twenty-six states in the United States constitutes a small portion of the American Legislative Council agenda. The two bills negatively impact the wages of the Americans who work hard to earn their daily living. Moreover, the two bills severely constrain the powers of the labor unions and puts pressure on the wages of the workers and consequently kill the free trade measures of wages in the economy.
The ALEC and Koch’s economic analysis proposes that West Virginia should change its laws to be similar to Kansas, the home of the two billionaire brothers. Cole, a close ally to the Koch brothers, was instrumental in urging the Senate colleagues to adopt the right to work bill (Graves 6). Cole persuaded the West Virginia Republicans saying that they should emulate Michigan counterparts and be confident in making West Virginia a Right to work state because that was the right thing to do. The PRWatch provided an information quoting Michigan’s Pete Lund telling the West Virginia Republican’s legislators to shun the opposition’s false scare tactics because they would all come to a stop and workers would begin enjoying the free workplace as well as the economic boost of inherent in the right to work states (Graves 6). The Senate’s Republicans overruling of the governor’s rejection of the right to work and prevailing wage repeal statutes is evidential of the influence that Koch's key advocacy groups had over enacted two bills.
Works Cited
Dean, Andrea M. "An Economic Examination of West Virginia's Prevailing Wage Law." The Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia (2009).
Graves, Lisa. "Koch-Fueled Playbook Against Working Families Exposed by CMD." PR Watch. Accessed on 22 Apr. 2016 from http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13030/koch-fueled-groups-launch-offensive-against-wv-working-families
Kelsay, Michael P. "The Adverse Economic Impact from Repeal of the Prevailing Wage Law in West Virginia." Prepared for the West Virginia Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation (2015).
MetroNews Staff. "Governor Vetoes Prevailing Wage, Right to Work Bills." WV MetroNews. February 2016. Accessed on 22 Apr. 2016 from http://wvmetronews.com/2016/02/11/governor-vetoes-prevailing-wage-right-to-work-bills/
