Official Summary Text
AB 963, Petrie-Norris.
Public works: prevailing wages: access to records.
Existing law requires that, except as specified, not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wages be paid to workers employed on public works and imposes misdemeanor penalties for a willful violation of this requirement. Existing law defines “public works,” for the purposes of regulating public works contracts, as, among other things, construction, alteration, demolition, installation, or repair work done under contract and paid for, in whole or in part, out of public funds.
Existing law requires the Labor Commissioner to investigate allegations that a contractor or subcontractor violated the law regulating public works projects, including the payment of prevailing wages. Existing law requires each contractor and subcontractor on a public works project to keep accurate payroll records, showing the name, address, social security
number, work classification, straight time and overtime hours worked each day and week, and the actual per diem wages paid to each journeyman, apprentice, worker, or other employee employed by the contractor or subcontractor in connection with the public work. Existing law requires any copy of records made available for inspection as copies and furnished upon request to the public or any public agency to be marked or obliterated to prevent disclosure of an individual’s name, address, and social security number but specifies that any copy of records made available to a Taft-Hartley trust fund for the purposes of allocating contributions to participants be marked or obliterated only to prevent disclosure of an individual’s full social security number, as specified.
This bill would require an owner or developer, as defined, undertaking any
work, subject to the prevailing wage requirements, to make specified records available upon request to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, to multiemployer Taft-Hartley trust funds, and to joint labor-management committees, as specified. The bill would set forth timelines for the owner or
developer to comply with a request for records and for a fund or committee to submit a complaint to the division in case of an owner’s or developer’s failure to comply. Under the latter circumstance, the bill would require the division to submit to the owner or developer a new written request for records, as specified.
Under the bill, if the owner or developer fails to comply with the request from the division, they would be subject to penalties, to be deposited into the State Public Works Enforcement Fund, as specified.
If a request for records is made, the bill would require that the request be made within 3 years of the completion of the work.
The bill would require the Director of Industrial Relations to adopt rules governing the release of these records, as specified.