Right-to-work: Bad . . . Repeal prevailing wage law: Good

There is talk in Michigan about repealing the prevailing wage law. Some thoughts:

If the major impact of Right-to-Work legislation is to force unions to continue to provide services to individuals who choose not to pay union dues, that's Bad. Makes no sense at all. And anecdotal evidence from the states which have enacted RTW suggests it hasn't hurt unions much. Two reasons, I think: First, there aren't that many freeloaders out there who would take advantage of the unfair law. Second, unions have ways of not quite providing services to freeloaders.

Repealing Michigan's prevailing wage law, though, is a Good idea. (Disclosure, As a management consultant and association director, I worked for decades with unionized and non-union contractors, with their suppliers, with unions themselves, and with their public and private sector customers.)

Technicalities aside, Prevailing Wage laws mandate -- especially in public sector work -- that non-union contractors must pay  their workers the wages and benefits which are the same as or very close to what is paid unionized workers. Wages "prevailing" in the geographic area, you see, are determined by reference to collective bargaining contracts in the building trades. The logic, if you can call the mandate logical, is fuzzy -- if its goal is supposed to be anything other than to protect organized labor.

I repeatedly found that customers experience good work and bad work from both unionized and open shop contractors. The argument that unionized workers are automatically better qualified is weak. I frequently teased my union friends that when they organized an open shop, the "scabs" became "skilled unionized workers" overnight. Depending on area of the country, it is not unusual that only about half of a union's members have actually gone through the excellent 5-year apprentice-to-journeyman training offered by unions for electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, sheet metal workers, et al.

Repeal Prevailing Wage and you create a market-dictated difference in the cost of building-and-fitting a school, for example. How much difference depends on several factors, but whether it's 5% or 12% less, it's less. Repeal Prevailing Wage, and local, county, state, or federal agencies will be forced to become more transparent about their less-than-impartial ties to organized labor, and taxpayers will benefit.

Repeating: Right-to-Work . . . Bad . . . Repeal Prevailing Wage . . . Good

Frank Versagi is the editor of Versagi Voice.