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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Common wage causes uncommon commotion

A curious mix of unions, trade groups, CEOs, government officials and special interest groups are clashing over the repeal of Indiana’s common construction wage.

The common construction wage, or common wage, is an Indiana law passed in 1935 to guarantee construction workers fair wages for government work.

All construction projects — except for road work — costing more than $350,000 and sponsored by state or local governments are required to determine a common wage for the project.

The common wage is determined on a county-by-county basis in which a five-member board decides wages for a government project based upon the prevailing construction wage in that area.

The wages set by these boards and regulated by the Indiana Department of Labor are often union wages for trades.

The common wage was repealed by the Indiana House and Senate and is on the desk of Gov. Mike Pence, who has been a vocal proponent of the push to repeal the law.

Those in favor of repealing the law say the state and local governments will save on construction projects and open construction wage laws to the influence of the free market.

The common wage’s backers, on the other hand, claim that by repealing the law legislators will hurt middle class wages and open up Indiana to unskilled labor from outside companies that will take money away from Indiana businesses and families.

The measure to repeal the law was introduced by Republicans in the legislature, with backing by Pence and groups such as the Indiana Opportunity Fund and the national right-wing lobbying organization Americans for Prosperity.

Opponents of the bill are made up of labor unions including the AFl-CIO, a large group of Indiana mayors and CEOs of many Indiana construction contractors.

While union support is perhaps not surprising, the support from contractor CEOs and many Republican mayors might have caused the close vote in the legislature, with the House voting 54-40 for the repeal and the Senate voting 27-23 in favor.

A union rally April 13 at the statehouse featured many CEOs of Indiana construction ?companies, including Rieth-Riley Construction, F.A. Wilhelm Construction Co. and GE Marshall — all who opposed the bill — saying it would hurt their workers’ wages and open the state to outside businesses.

In addition to the CEOs, many Indiana mayors also spoke at the convention against the bill, including Fort Wayne Mayor Tom ?Henry.

Thirty Indiana mayors opposing the bill — including Henry and South Bend mayor Peter Buttigieg, who are both Democrats — published an op-ed against it. However, the Republican mayor of Evansville, Lloyd Winnecke, also signed the letter in a bipartisan ?showing.

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