The MacIver Institute focuses on two items the Legislature should pass whether or not Gov. Scott Walker supports them.

The first is anti-compulsory-union-membership legislation, about which James Wigderson writes:

One of the more prominent complaints at the time Act 10 was passed was about the exclusion of local police and firefighter unions from its effects. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett made it a regular criticism of Governor Scott Walker during the recall campaign, and his criticisms were echoed elsewhere.

Of course, also missing from Act 10 were the private sector unions. Act 10 only concerned itself with curtailing the collective bargaining powers of the public sector unions, including the rules for recertification, the forced collection of union dues, and whether collective bargaining includes issues outside of direct salary compensation.

Right-to-work legislation would even the score a bit between public sector employees and private sector employees. In the public sector, employees no longer face the automatic deductions from their paychecks to support a union, whether or not they wanted to join. Private sector employees currently do not have that option if it is a union worksite. Right-to-work would actually give employees the choice of whether or not to join the union.

Choice is a key word when discussing right-to-work. In an interview on the television program UpFront, Democratic State Rep Andy Jorgensen used the word choice when trying to argue against right-to-work legislation. According to the transcript, “It does not get to the question of whether or not an individual should have that right, that choice. It takes away the freedom to belong to a strong union. You have the freedom of whether or not you want to work at a union shop. You should have the choice to belong to a collective-bargaining unit so you could fight for things like wages, safety, and workplace conditions.”

It’s an interesting definition of the word “choice” from Jorgensen. You can either choose not to work, or you can choose to be part of a union.
But public sector workers now have a third choice and many are taking advantage. WEAC, the state’s largest teachers union, has lost a third of its membership, according to Forbes. The American Federation of Teachers has lost half of its membership. The Washington Examiner reports American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Leadership Council 40 has lost 18,000 members in the past four years while Leadership Council 48 has lost 5,600 members.

As Sean Higgins in the Examiner wrote, “The membership declines suggest that thousands of workers have simply walked away from their unions, either because they did not want to be members in the first place or because the reforms sharply limited what the unions could do for them even if they stayed.”

The freedom to choose whether to be in a union is a benefit available to public sector workers. It makes sense to extend that same freedom to the private sector.

The other issue has gotten less notice, but is at least as important. Haley Sinklair writes:

Legislation soon to be introduced by Rep. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) would eliminate Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law to allow for greater competition in the bidding process for public works projects financed by taxpayers. Rep. Hutton believes that competition among firms looking to win government construction contracts will help to hold down costs and better reflect market conditions, saving taxpayers money.

Currently, Wisconsin’s prevailing wage law mandates that workers employed on public works projects receive compensation according to a small sampling of wages paid to workers on similar projects in the area.

This arbitrary establishment of wage rates requires contractors to pay workers more than what the market requires, according to Hutton.

“The elimination of prevailing wage will provide local governments with a critical tool to reduce costs associated with capital budgets,” commented Rep. Hutton. “Any discussion about additional investments in Wisconsin’s infrastructure must include prevailing wage reform.”

Currently, 18 states have no prevailing wage law.

Wisconsin has three different prevailing wage laws covering different types of public works projects. The first two laws, enacted in 1931, cover projects bid by a state agency and state highway and bridge projects. The third law, enacted in 1933, covers projects bid or negotiated by a local governmental unit. These laws were enacted in an effort to protect the wages of certain workers during the Great Depression.

To determine prevailing wage rates, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is required to conduct an annual survey that includes hourly base wage and hourly fringe benefit rate, among other information.

In 2014, DWD only received 1,774 survey responses of the 18,673 that were sent out. This figure represents less than 10% of the industry. Information from the 2014 surveys will be used to determine the prevailing wage rate for 2016.

In determining the prevailing wage, DWD uses two methods.

The first uses the highest 50% of wages by hour and then averages them to determine a rate by county. If there is not enough county data to meet a minimum of 500 hours worked, data is included from neighboring counties. If data from neighboring counties still fails to reach a minimum of 500 hours worked, the prevailing wage for that county is then based off of statewide data.

Using this method could mean that a project in a northern Wisconsin county could be based off of wage data from Dane County if not enough local data is available.

The second method uses the same tier system, but if one wage makes up 50% of the total hours worked in a profession, that wage automatically becomes the prevailing wage rate.

A 2013 study on Michigan’s prevailing wage law found that similar legislation could have saved the state $225 million annually on school district and higher education projects alone.