Vote on repealing Michigan's prevailing wage law expected in Legislature

Kathleen Gray
Detroit Free Press
The Michigan State Capitol building on Wednesday, May 17, 2017.

LANSING – Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are expected to approve a petition next week that will repeal the state’s prevailing wage law.

The law, which requires paying union-scale wages for public construction projects, has long been a target of GOP lawmakers, who say taxpayer dollars will be saved with a repeal..

“I’m optimistic that the caucus will get it done,” said state Rep. Lee Chatfield, R-Levering. “We’ll be able to put more money in the classroom and into roads. And we’ll be letting the free market decide wages.”

But Democrats are expected to use the issue as a hammer in this election cycle with the charge that Republicans are actually cutting middle-class wages at a time when there is a critical shortage of skilled trades workers in Michigan.

“One of the things we’re talking about at this conference is the critical need for talent in the state. Talent is not going to be restored if we keep pushing wages down and down and down,” Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said during the Mackinac Policy Conference this week. “We’ve seen economic growth in the last seven years, but wages are stagnant.”

The Democratic Party will be appealing to union voters, many of whom switched to vote for Republicans in the 2016 election cycle, to let them know of the Republican vote on prevailing wage.

“This is a group of people who often votes Republican and I hope they’re seeing that these guys are not their friends,” Ananich said. “I couldn’t be more opposed to this.”

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Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, and Speaker of the House Tom Leonard, R-Dewitt, both said they will take up the issue next week. There will be no problem getting the necessary votes in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 27-10 majority. But the vote is expected to be closer in the House of Representatives where the GOP holds a 63-46 majority.

“I believe the support is there for prevailing wage,” Leonard said. “I have spoken with contractors and labor folks who work for smaller contracting firms and they can’t compete for those prevailing wage jobs. When you let the free market work and you let everybody compete for that labor, it’s good for everybody and it’s good for wages in the state.”

The vote will come in the wake of a ruling by the state Board of Canvassers on Friday morning certifying a ballot petition that was turned in by a group affiliated with the Associated Builders and Contractors that has been trying to repeal the prevailing wage for years, but have been thwarted in the Legislature by a promised veto from Gov. Rick Snyder, who said repealing the wage would be harmful to his efforts to boost skilled trades in Michigan.

Snyder said Thursday that he still opposes the repeal, but isn't actively lobbying legislators to vote against it.

"I've made my opinion known and legislators can look at that," he said.

Since the Legislature hasn’t been able to repeal the law, the group has attempted to gather the necessary signatures twice. But a petition they turned in two years ago was riddled with fraudulent and duplicate signatures and didn’t make it to the ballot or a vote in the Legislature.

Once the Board certified the petition, the Legislature has 40 days to act and has three options: pass it and it automatically becomes law without the need for a signature from the governor; pass a competing proposal that would go to the Nov. 6 ballot, or do nothing and the issue would head to the general election ballot for a statewide vote.

A group opposing the repeal — Protecting Michigan Jobs — tried to get this petition thrown out, too, because people who collected the signatures had filed fraudulent addresses for their residences, including homeless shelters, U.S. postal offices, hotels and abandoned homes.

The Board of Canvassers initially deadlocked on the petition 2-2, but both the state Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court ordered the board to certify the petition. On Friday, the board, made up of two Republicans and two Democrats, voted 4-0 to certify the petition.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal..