Legislation that would eliminate the prevailing wage requirement in Missouri was heard Tuesday by a State Senate committee.
The state calculates various wages that are to be paid in each county and in St. Louis for construction trades on building projects. The sponsor, GOP Senator Dan Brown of Rolla, says eliminating prevailing wage requirements would give smaller businesses outside of St. Louis and Kansas City a fair shot at landing construction contracts.
“This was originally brought to me by some of my county commissioners, and they were quite concerned about (the) prevailing wage law and how it was preventing them from building some sheds, and also some of their repair work,” Brown said.
Randy Long is a non-union mechanical contractor from southwestern Missouri who sided with labor unions in opposing the bill.
“Everybody deserves a good quality wage in this day and time. We don’t need out-of-state workmen coming in at a lesser rate to compete with us,” Long said. “I mean, prevailing wage needs to be protected for that reason.”
A committee vote will be held at a later date.
Meanwhile, a similar bill in the Missouri House would allow school districts to exempt themselves from the prevailing wage.