The words "change" and "reform" are on lips of many lawmakers at the Capitol.
Republican lawmakers introduced legislation to reform the way construction workers are paid to create more jobs.
"This is not about trying to balance the budget deficit on the backs of workers, what this is about is putting in fair wages, market wages for as many workers as we can to keep as many people employed as possible," Sen. Chris Gerlach (R-Apple Valley) said Wednesday.
Currently state law requires contractors working on state funded (public) projects to pay their workers comparably to similar private projects in the community.
This is called prevailing wage. The problem; lawmakers and some contractors say, is that workers are getting paid at an unfair wage rate at a time when taxpayer money could be used to create more jobs or fix the state's budget.
"When we overpay that means we're going to have fewer construction projects, we're going to have fewer people employed because you can't hire as many and that has a rippling effect on our economy," Sen. Gerlach said.
"Paying a supersize salary to some is wrong," said Rep. Steve Gottwalt, (R-St. Cloud).
Public contractors must pay their workers the average mode (most common number) instead of the average mean (average of all the numbers) of people doing the same job in the private sector.
For example, if two private sector workers were getting paid $43, another worker was getting paid $27 and another worker was getting paid $30 for the same job. Everyone who did that job for a public sector project would get paid the mode of $43, instead of the mean of $35.75.
Sen. Gerlach said one of the pieces of legislation would change that and create hundreds of jobs.
"Minnesota has the worse calculation for prevailing wage, bar-none and it's worse than the federal government, said, Minnesota Chapter president of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. Robert Heise.
The federal government uses the weighted average or the mean average for "prevailing wage."
"I ask you in recessionary times, is this how Minnesotans want to spend their money?," Heise said.
Vice President of Mike's Clean Sweeps Services, Paul Burke says because he's forced to pay his workers with prevailing wage, he misses out on a lot of jobs.
"One of my workers makes $85,000 a year," Burke said. "The premium is 35 to 45 percent more than your normal wage."
If legislation passes, then prevailing wage for construction workers would be suspended for a year if the November budget forecasts the state to have a percent deficit of one or more.
