Construction Unions Ally with Striking Teachers to Fight for Prevailing Wage Laws (NC)

BY: MIKE ELK
MAY 15, 2018

As North Carolina teachers go out on strike tomorrow, they will be joined by the ranks of the state’s construction unions. Much like teachers, who lack the right to collective bargaining in the state, construction workers employed on North Carolina’s state-funded projects, such as schools, lack the ability to have their wages set by union-endorsed prevailing wage standards.

They say the lack of collective bargaining rights for public employees in North Carolina is symptomatic of how the state also undervalues all workers employed on projects financed on the public’s dime.

“When your public employees are organized, it sets the standard and foundation for everybody else,” says North Carolina IBEW Local 379 President Scott Thrower. “When they are not, the private sector is setting the ground.”

While construction workers in other states enjoy the benefits of prevailing wage standards, construction workers in North Carolina do not. Under prevailing wage standards, contractors are forced to pay the median wage that construction workers are paid in that region as determined by a government survey-the idea being that government-funded projects are supposed to keep wages from falling.

“Prevailing wage levels the playing field,” says Thrower.

Without a prevailing wage, contractors on state-funded projects can simply pay their workers whatever they want.

While unionized electrical contractors in the state, working on federally funded projects that use prevailing wage standards, make a minimum of $25 an hour with retirement and health care benefits, non-union electrical contractors work on state-funded projects that often pay as little as $15-$20 per hour due to the lack of prevailing wage standards on state-funded projects.

Worse, union leaders say the lack of prevailing wage standards negatively affects high road contractors, who use higher training and safety standards.

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Drivers Strike Against XPO Logistics in Latest Misclassification Fight

RYAN ZUMMALLEN
JUNE 19, 2017

Every day Jose Herrera picks up his Kenworth T600 truck from a rented lot in Moreno Valley, Calif., and fights traffic on the 60 Freeway to the office of his employer, XPO Logistics, 70 miles away in Commerce.

The commute puts wear and tear on the vehicle, leads to pricey fuel bills and accelerates the maintenance schedule. But Herrera doesn’t have a choice. XPO, one of the largest shipping companies in the world, doesn’t allow drivers who own their trucks to park overnight at that location, he said.

“You have to spend more money to keep the truck going,” Herrera said.

Herrera was one of about a dozen drivers on a picket line in front of the XPO office Monday. The strike involves more than 150 drivers at XPO’s Commerce location, said Santos Castaneda, an organizer with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is lending support. Drivers also struck at XPO locations in nearby Rancho Dominguez and farther south in San Diego.

It’s the latest effort from drivers to put pressure on shipping companies in the ongoing nationwide dispute over driver claims that they are misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees of the company. Monday’s strike is the 15th at Los Angeles ports in the last four years.

“There has been no impact to customers,” said Erin Kurtz, a spokesperson for XPO.

“We know firsthand that the majority of owner-operators prefer to work as independent contractors, and we will continue to advocate for their right to do so,” XPO said in a statement.

Truckers have filed more than 800 employee misclassification wage claims since 2011 and have been awarded about $40 million over 300 cases, according to the California Labor Commissioner’s office. About 200 cases are still pending, according to the state agency.

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