LANSING – Most of the Senate Democratic
caucus was firing on all cylinders Thursday in the wake of the decision by the
Republican majority to pass a three-bill package that would repeal the state’s
prevailing wage law.
But they were not alone. The debate
was actually sparked by Sen.
Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba), who would be among five Republicans to join all
Democrats in opposition to SB
1
, SB
2 and SB
3.
“I would implore my colleagues
to ask themselves, when you’re accused of supporting the corporations in place
of the working man – are you?” Casperson asked his own caucus in an
impassioned speech on the Senate floor. “I get nervous when somehow we
think we’re going to save taxpayer money – and by the way, does anybody in here
really believe the taxpayers are going to see this money in their pockets? I
don’t see it, because I don’t see us following up with a tax reduction because
we’re doing this.”
The bills were voted out of the
Senate Michigan Competitiveness Committee on Wednesday on a party-line vote,
and all three cleared the chamber on a 22-15 vote Thursday, with Casperson,
Senate Majority
Floor Leader Mike Kowall (R-White Lake Township), Sen.
Mike Nofs (R-Battle Creek), Sen.
Tory Rocca (R-Sterling Heights) and Sen.
Dale Zorn (R-Ida) joining Democrats in opposition.
Rebekah Warren (D-Ann Arbor) narrowly lost an amendment on SB 3 that would
have removed a $75,000 appropriation inserted in a substitute that was given
the green light by the committee. The bill sponsor, Sen.
Dave Robertson (R-Grand Blanc), said the appropriation was necessary for
disseminating information to the public and especially to workers about the
change in laws and their rights.
Warren balked at that assertion
Thursday, saying she doesn’t see the chamber giving appropriations to tell the
public about other laws that they pass and that this should be no exception.
Rather, she said, the appropriation is to make the bill referendum-proof, a
move that her colleague Sen.
Curtis Hertel Jr. (D-East Lansing) called “the height of political
cowardice.”
The amendment was defeated by a vote
of 18-19, with Sen.
Virgil Smith (D-Detroit) still absent from session. Republicans Sen.
Mike Green of Mayville, Sen.
Goeff Hansen of Hart, Sen. Margaret O’Brien of Portage and Sen.
Tonya Schuitmaker of Lawton joined Democrats to support Warren’s
amendment, as did Casperson, Horn, Nofs and Rocca.
Hertel ripped into Senate
Republicans prior to voting on final passage, telling his colleagues that if
they expected to start a road funding discussion by putting it on the backs of
working men and women, “don’t come to our side for votes,” he said, “because it’s dead on arrival for us.”
“Yesterday, I was sitting in my
office, looking out at the Capitol, watching the workers strap themselves into
scaffolding to make our Capitol dome look better – the ones out there right now
fixing up this place for us. And we’re going to attack their wages while
they’re rebuilding our Capitol?” Hertel said, his voice cracking some. “This Capitol is not yours. It does not belong to us. It belongs to the
people. It’s their business we should be doing here. We should be fighting for
them, not attacking their wages.”
He also urged his colleagues to
consider cutting the profits of “the CEOs of the corporations taking our
taxpayer dollars and stuffing it in their pockets,” much as Senate Minority
Floor Leader Morris Hood III (D-Detroit) urged his Republican colleagues to
consider taking a pay cut if they wanted to pass this legislation.
“If you’re going to take money
out of the pockets of the people who put us here – then why don’t you take
some money out of your pocket? Cut your pay. How about that? What’s good for
the goose is good for the gander,” Hood said. “Cut your pay while
you’re cutting their pay. Be men and women about it. Don’t be scared. If you’re
going to make their lives a little more difficult, then make yours.”
Indeed, much of the arguments from
those opposing the legislation to repeal the prevailing wage were concerned
with the potential reduction of wages and worker quality, less on-the-job
training, and less safety at the work site.
“The biggest concern that I
have is the entire conversation, in my estimation, is built on a false premise
that somehow we’re going to save hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer
money by doing away with this policy. And in fact, there is no modern,
academically-rigorous, peer-reviewed study that shows that is true. Not
one,” Warren said, referring to a study by the Anderson Economic Group
that was paid for by the Associated Builders and Contractors (who have been
supportive of repealing prevailing wage).
“Repealing prevailing wage will
hurt our economy. It will hurt our businesses. It will hurt our workers. And it
will encourage out-of-state companies to come in, underbid, steal business from
Michigan contractors, (and) steal jobs from Michigan workers,” Sen.
David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights) said. “And I don’t know how anybody
can sleep at night – knowing they are putting into place a policy that takes
jobs away from Michigan families and sends them across our borders.”
Proponents of the legislation,
especially its sponsors, remained unfazed by the arguments.
“This repeal has been one of my
top priorities since I was first elected to the Legislature and is based on my
experience as a township official and state representative. Prevailing wage
laws artificially raise the costs of construction for projects paid for with
taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority
Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) said on the floor.
He added that labor costs typically
account for 25 percent of the overall construction costs, and prevailing wage “based solely on examining union wage” results in inflation somewhere
between 40 percent and 60 percent of the labor costs, he said.
“As a result, overall
construction price of a government-funded or taxpayer-funded project is
inflated between 10 and 15 percent,” Meekhof said.
John Proos (R-St. Joseph) joined Meekhof in giving a statement of support
on the floor, pointing to Southwestern Michigan College in his district. He
said as a real-world example, the cost of reconstructing two buildings on its
campus were about $800,000 more because of prevailing wage. He said the college
built, on its own, three residence halls and can point to the differences in
costs.
“They can look very directly at
how much money they’ve saved the taxpayers by virtue of having a competitive
bidding process that didn’t have an artificial floor for costs that frankly,
saved us as taxpayers, about $3.1 million, or 10 percent of the total
cost,” Proos said.
Rick Snyder has expressed disinterest in repealing the prevailing wage law,
but Meekhof, speaking to reporters after session, said he welcomed that
challenge.
“We’re going to take our
opportunity to put it in front of the governor and see what he’s going to
do,” he said, noting that while he had not talked directly to the governor,
he heard from staff that Snyder did not think it was the right policy. “He
didn’t ever intend to support right-to-work either, now he uses it when he’s
touting about Michigan.”
Meekhof said he disagreed with the
notion that this policy might draw skilled workers away from the state.
“Michigan is on the road to
recovery, and there’s plenty of construction jobs going around now. In fact,
there’s kind of a shortage of those folks. We need a lot of our folks that left
Michigan to pursue those opportunities to come back and hopefully because our
economy is doing so well they’ll want to come back,” Meekhof told
reporters.
This story was published by Gongwer
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