Prevailing wage laws are designed to protect local workers from seeing their pay decline due to government contracts going to the lowest bidders. They require contractors on public works projects to pay employees the region’s prevailing wage. Until now, the formula used to determine the prevailing wage generally turned out to be union scale, often the highest in the area. But new regulations change the method of calculating the prevailing wage by tying it to the pay of the majority of workers in the particular craft. The federal government uses the same method. The new rules are scheduled to go into effect on January 30 unless unions obtain a court order blocking their implementation. For more information, contact the Department of Industrial Relations at (415) 972-8620
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