Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

LABOR COMMISSION: Survey to determine prevailing wages

Poll will determine rates paid on public projects in Nevada

A survey of licensed contractors is being conducted by the Nevada labor commissioner to determine prevailing wage rates to be paid on public works projects.

These established rates are required to be paid on all Nevada construction projects financed by taxpayer dollars, including schools, libraries, roads and government buildings.

Last year, $1.2 billion was spent on public works projects in Nevada.

The survey, required by state law, will be posted Thursday on the Labor Commissioner's Web site, www.laborcommissioner.com.

Prevailing wage rates vary with the classification of the worker and the county in which the public work is being performed, said Amanda Getzoff, spokeswoman for the Office of the Labor Commissioner.

For example, a journeyman carpenter at the top level would be paid differently in Clark County than Mineral County, she said.

A sampling of 2003 prevailing hourly wages in Clark County, listed on the commissioner's Web site, includes: $36.63 for a journeyman carpenter; $42.15 for a journeyman ironworker; $27.96 for an electrical installer-technician; $40.27 for a journeyman wireman; $31.29 for a Group 1 laborer; and $28.81 for a flagperson.

Contractors are not required by law to participate in the wage survey.

"We go with whatever the majority rule is," Getzoff said, though the labor commissioner has established a system to verify the rates, including random audits of contractors' books.

Labor Commissioner Terry Johnson has been working to dispel misunderstandings about the wage survey. Much of the confusion lies in how the rates are determined and what information is important, he said.

"Virtually from the first day I took office, people would ask, `Where do you come up with these rates?' Somehow people assume that the numbers are pulled out of thin air," he said.

"In reality, I rely on contractors to accurately report what they paid their workers. This information, in turn, is used to publish prevailing wage rates."

Participation is the key, and Johnson said he's seen a steady increase in the number of contractors who submit completed surveys since he began using the Internet to release the survey three years ago.

Of the 12,280 surveys sent out last year, he received responses from 1,686 contractors.

Contractors who don't have Internet access can request a hard copy of the survey by calling the labor office in Las Vegas at 486-2650.

Johnson said contractors, especially nonunion contractors, need to realize the importance of responding to the survey, regardless of what they pay their workers, to get an accurate reflection of the prevailing wage.

"It scares me that some of the contractors don't participate because we want to know what's going on in general construction," he said. "I want to know what's being done on a Sears store or a bank or convenience store."

The Office of the Labor Commissioner uses a formula outlined in Nevada Administrative Code Chapter 338 to calculate prevailing wage rates.

It includes: the rate paid to the majority of workers in a class; where there is no majority, the established rate is the amount paid to at least 40 percent of workers in a class; and where there is still no prevailing rate, it's a weighted average of all wages in proportion to the number of hours worked in a class.

If the rate came from a collective bargaining agreement, usually negotiated by a labor union, Nevada law allows the commissioner to consider wage increases set forth in that agreement.

The key point is only if the rate determined to be prevailing was derived from a collective bargaining agreement, then the labor commissioner could consider such wage increases.