prevailing wage jobs on heavy highway construction sites

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If you get hired as a aws certified 1.5d welder. But you only get welder rate occasionally. And labor rate majority of time.is there anything you can doLast edited by cromaninsky; 12-20-2013 at 05:50 AM.
Reply:Sign up with a union.
Reply:Thanks manSent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Reply:You can also talk with the inspector/labor compliance officer.  I am an inspector on transportation jobs and often do labor compliance interviews of the workers.  I see some non-union contractors that will run their employees in as many as (3) three different labor classifications all in the same day.  Usually it's the smaller prime/paper contractors that do this.  For instance they will have a guy running a backhoe for an hour or two as an operating engineer and then have him shovel dirt for a few hours as a laborer.  The practice seems dirty to me and is a pain in the a$$ for my recording.  As far as I have been told the practice is legal.  Usually when I see this practice I know there will be trouble on the job, low bid and the contractor is shady or they have to rely on squeezing their employees for every penny in order to make a profit.On another note, I am a free market guy and the whole idea of a prevailing wage is just nonsense to me.  It is nothing more than government gift to buy Union votes imo, but it does keep the playing field somewhat equal in the contracting field.Bottom line, you should be paid as a welder when you are doing welding work.  If you are digging a hole using a shovel, you can be paid as a laborer.
Reply:It gets even better .  If you go " offsite "  to do a repair ( such as at the gravel pit , fill dirt mine , ect.. )  you may or may not ( depending on  complex and weird rules that i never fully grasped ) fall under the wage scale of the site .  I.E.  You might draw $25hr  on grade working and $12hr at the pit . or whatever .  Note that i never did the welder gig  but did run into this a few times as an equipment operator . Never had anyone try and stiff me from operator to laborer  scale though , I was hired as an operator and paid as such though they did get me  with the " offsite "  work a time or two .
Reply:When I was applying for the railroad they had this same thing.  They told me I would be hired as a laborer and that I had to bid to be a welder or a welders helper.  But funny thing is I know a welder for the railroad, I used to do all the welding for him on his farm, because the railroad only taught him how to thermite weld.  So the interviewers also explained to me that it would be noted on my record I'm a welder, and that if something broke down and I repaired it I would get welders pay that day, same as if I was running equipment for the day I'd be getting operators pay.  And the railroad is union, so don't think there is anything more you can do than look for another job if you don't like it.
Reply:If anything the prevailing wage law helps the non union worker. The non union shop will bid on a project and not be that far off from a union contractor, the difference is he will pay his welder or tradesman far less than the prevailing wage and pocket the profit. However, on a prevailing wage project the tradesmen get paid the wages they are supposed to be paid for that task. What this contractor is doing is paying the man as a welder only when he welds and the rest of the time he gets paid less money for performing non welding work. Its almost like paying him for part time work. Thats how these companies beat the system, and take money out of the workers pockets and puts it in theirs.They dont care one way or the other about the worker his family or their quality of life.If a union man makes x amount of money for a job , then why shouldnt a non union man make the same?Especially on a project that is a prevailing wage job.without prevailing wage jobs we would all be working for $5 an hour., in a $40 economy.
Reply:Originally Posted by mgilIf anything the prevailing wage law helps the non union worker. The non union shop will bid on a project and not be that far off from a union contractor, the difference is he will pay his welder or tradesman far less than the prevailing wage and pocket the profit. However, on a prevailing wage project the tradesmen get paid the wages they are supposed to be paid for that task. What this contractor is doing is paying the man as a welder only when he welds and the rest of the time he gets paid less money for performing non welding work. Its almost like paying him for part time work. Thats how these companies beat the system, and take money out of the workers pockets and puts it in theirs.They dont care one way or the other about the worker his family or their quality of life.If a union man makes x amount of money for a job , then why shouldnt a non union man make the same?Especially on a project that is a prevailing wage job.without prevailing wage jobs we would all be working for $5 an hour., in a $40 economy.
Reply:Originally Posted by middleofnowhereYou can also talk with the inspector/labor compliance officer.  I am an inspector on transportation jobs and often do labor compliance interviews of the workers.  I see some non-union contractors that will run their employees in as many as (3) three different labor classifications all in the same day.  Usually it's the smaller prime/paper contractors that do this.  For instance they will have a guy running a backhoe for an hour or two as an operating engineer and then have him shovel dirt for a few hours as a laborer.  The practice seems dirty to me and is a pain in the a$$ for my recording.  As far as I have been told the practice is legal.  Usually when I see this practice I know there will be trouble on the job, low bid and the contractor is shady or they have to rely on squeezing their employees for every penny in order to make a profit.On another note, I am a free market guy and the whole idea of a prevailing wage is just nonsense to me.  It is nothing more than government gift to buy Union votes imo, but it does keep the playing field somewhat equal in the contracting field.Bottom line, you should be paid as a welder when you are doing welding work.  If you are digging a hole using a shovel, you can be paid as a laborer.
Reply:Originally Posted by Rock knockerExaggerate a little?  A non-union PW welder might make $52, while a laborer might pull down $46.  So it's not a huge difference, and at those rates, no one should be starving
Reply:Originally Posted by CEPAround here the operating engineers must have 25 different pay scales. Some project managers I worked for would want me to keep track of every hour an operator was running different equipment. Well when trying to run an entire project, then go out and ask the operators every morning what they did the day before, bull sh!t my time is worth something too! If a man is good enough to run a 250-ton crane for X-amount of money, he is good enough to run a forklift for the same pay scale as the crane! Just my opinion!
Reply:I took a weld test to get the job.What's b.s..is the carpenter s on the job make their rate all the time even if their labor s. And they didn't take a carpenter cert.to get the job. I should of hired as a welder. Carpenter. Thanks.Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Reply:They have their ways of lying on the record s they'll keep. I keep track of everything I do. Its funny tho.there is like 20 different classification s .but welder and operators have no classification.  They get paid carpenter rate as operators. Time to put my aws cert to use.ThanksSent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Reply:That's bs too.a welder should get paid the same all day too.that's why my pay is always messed up.im thankful.to have a job but we put our time in to earn that kind of money. If anyone thinks construction is easy.ill trade them day jobs anydaySent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
Reply:you should get paid a full dat for the highest scale you worked for, if  i get a call to go to a job, it is a four hour minimum charge plus travel one way,design your policy upwards  up from there!
Reply:In the early 1980s I worked for a sub contractor, working for Peter Kiewit who was the prime. The project was in a Navy ship yard. About 9-months to a year after completion of the project the government contacted me. Wanted to know if all my benefits had been paid. Peter Kiewit was playing games by not paying correctly. They got suspended for 5-years from bidding any more Navy projects. Now why in the world would an outfit the size of Kiewit do something like that? Don’t pay any attention to meI’m just a hobbyist!CarlDynasty 300V350-Pro w/pulseSG Spool gun1937 IdealArc-300PowerArc 200ST3 SA-200sVantage 400
Reply:I worked for non-union shops for most of my life before becoming an inspector.  I always made way more than union scale by being an asset to my employer.  Basically I made the company money and was compensated accordingly.  You are still an entrepreneur even if you are a wage earning employee.  If your current employer (your client essentially) doesn't pay you enough, take your labor elsewhere.Anyone with the "entitlement" attitude on the job is just a communist LOL.
Reply:Originally Posted by CEPIn the early 1980s I worked for a sub contractor, working for Peter Kiewit who was the prime. The project was in a Navy ship yard. About 9-months to a year after completion of the project the government contacted me. Wanted to know if all my benefits had been paid. Peter Kiewit was playing games by not paying correctly. They got suspended for 5-years from bidding any more Navy projects. Now why in the world would an outfit the size of Kiewit do something like that?
Reply:Originally Posted by mgilI am surprised to hear that keiwit pulled that crap, but they are so big in this country as well as overseas it was probably a small loss to them.
Reply:We used to work out of town a lot, we sent out whole crews (pipefitters, electricians, operators, masons, etc.) to stay in hotels near the job site.  The contractor we worked for was fairly generous with per diem and used to give us extra cash (for the guys that didnt have company trucks) for gas money to get to the project City.  A lot of guys pocketed the cash and jumped in one of the many company trucks heading to the job site on Monday AM.  One disgruntled d!ckhead, that took the cash and carpooled for years, filed a grievance with the State.  Ultimately the State determined that anyone who rode in a company truck to the job site was entitled to overtime.  The owner had to pay 10s of thousands of dollars in back overtime plus a fine. The company did away with allowing anyone other than the driver to be in a company truck.  That stupid policy hurt the business as well as the employees. Ultimately, the owner just closed the doors on the business after over 20-years.  30-guys including me lost our great jobs.No one puts a gun to your head and tells you to work for a non-prevailing/union shop. If you work for a non-union shop and you occasionally get prevailing wage, you should just be grateful to the taxpayers who are shelling out the $$ to pay your fake and inflated wage.
Reply:I know we have to post the wage tables on site on prevailing wage jobs. As a union contractor we have different wages for different work classifications that our accounting figures based on how the work is phased on-site but at most the differences between wage classifications are maybe $1-2/hr. It applies to all the trades we directly hire (mostly laborers and carpenters). I would say that if you carry a journeyman welder card and carry the needed certs then you should be paid as a welder. Only way to make that happen would be to get on a crew for an outfit that does union welding and stay with them.
Reply:Originally Posted by middleofnowhereWe used to work out of town a lot, we sent out whole crews (pipefitters, electricians, operators, masons, etc.) to stay in hotels near the job site.  The contractor we worked for was fairly generous with per diem and used to give us extra cash (for the guys that didnt have company trucks) for gas money to get to the project City.  A lot of guys pocketed the cash and jumped in one of the many company trucks heading to the job site on Monday AM.  One disgruntled d!ckhead, that took the cash and carpooled for years, filed a grievance with the State.  Ultimately the State determined that anyone who rode in a company truck to the job site was entitled to overtime.  The owner had to pay 10s of thousands of dollars in back overtime plus a fine. The company did away with allowing anyone other than the driver to be in a company truck.  That stupid policy hurt the business as well as the employees. Ultimately, the owner just closed the doors on the business after over 20-years.  30-guys including me lost our great jobs.No one puts a gun to your head and tells you to work for a non-prevailing/union shop. If you work for a non-union shop and you occasionally get prevailing wage, you should just be grateful to the taxpayers who are shelling out the $$ to pay your fake and inflated wage.