Every day in Nevada there are individuals and organization that spend their waking hours trying to think of ways to put you, as an open shop contractor, out of business. Our experience in the world of Nevada politics has unmistakably demonstrated to us that if ABC is not willing or able to engage in the battle to protect your business…no one will!
With construction defect litigation threatening to shut down the construction industry in Southern Nevada ABC has taken the lead in organizing a construction industry coalition to aggressively address the issue. ABC's Government Affairs Chairman is leading the coalition which is committed to providing a statutory definition of construction defect as well as providing the contractors with the right to repair.
When the Clark County School District looked into adopting a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on all school construction in Southern Nevada, ABC was the lone construction trade association to actively oppose the plan. As past PLA's in Southern Nevada have shown, open shop contractors need not apply! Not only did ABC oppose the plan, through the education and lobbying efforts of the ABC Government Affairs Committee the district concluded that, "there is no compelling reason to pursue PLA's at this time".
During the last session of the legislature a bill was introduced that would have required state and local governments to adopt pre-qualification criteria that would have almost certainly led to the unfair disqualification of many contractors. For example, government entities would have been required to disqualify any contractor with "an alleged" safety or labor violation. While we are certainly concerned about safety issues and compliance with labor laws can you imagine the opportunity for abuse such a law would present? In the face of such legislation once again ABC lead the charge to defeat the legislation…and defeat it we did!
The state labor commissioner's review of union collective bargaining agreements and a declaration that the wage rates therein prevails has historically determined prevailing wage in Nevada. ABC took this challenge on and helped facilitate significant changes to the prevailing wage regulations to more accurately determine an appropriate wage. For example, Unions can no longer submit wage surveys on behalf of their signatories without a legal power of attorney to do so. 40% of an identical wage is now required to be considered prevailing. This is up from the 30% requirement in place for many years and ABC is now working to increase this to a more logical 50%. In addition, there is now a measurable process in place to determine wage classifications instead of leaving the decision to the sole discretion of the labor commissioner. And finally, collective bargaining agreements are only looked at as a final resort in determining prevailing wage.
Prior to last session an ABC member brought to our attention a law they felt, and we agreed was unfair. According to the law, contractors could be held liable for the business activity tax payments of all subcontractors they employed. ABC went to work and, after an extensive battle, legislation was passed to correct this inequity. Once again ABC's government affairs team led the charge in guaranteeing fairness.
ABC is actively involved in negotiating an excepted standard of prevailing wage job classifications so that open shop contractors can never be again accused of violating prevailing wage classifications based upon an ad hoc interpretation of which wage should be paid in a given situation. This will guarantee the due process rights of the open shop contractor.
These are just a few examples of how ABC's Government Affairs team of lobbyist and staff are looking out for your interests as an open shop contractor. Again, if we don't do it, history has shown…nobody will!