The labor community is once again butting heads with the perpetually cash-strapped AISD, after the district recommended that the board of trustees adopt a prevailing wage scale for skilled laborers that does not budget for benefits. “They’re sending a message that despite the princely benefit packages they all enjoy, they don’t think that construction workers should enjoy the same,” said Michael Murphy of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The dispute goes back several months, to when AISD was putting together the $519.5 million bond package that Austin voters passed in November. At the time, AISD planned to pay laborers for the $490 million of construction work in the package based on a “prevailing,” or industry average, wage scale that hadn’t been updated since 1988. Pointing out that the cost of living in Austin had increased a wee bit since 1988, the unions urged AISD to simply adopt the federal wage scale that the state, city, and county already use. As a compromise, AISD agreed to put together a committee to survey local firms and develop their own, updated scale.
The committee sent surveys to 1,900 firms, and from the 262 that responded, determined average wages and benefits for journeyman workers (those with four years of experience) in Central Texas. For example, journeyman ironworkers average $16.97 in wages and $3.40 in benefits, for a total of $20.37 an hour. Taken as a whole, these average wages are actually higher than the federal scale. Or, as AISD might say, “Whoops.”
“They wanted to have a survey, then they don’t like the results and don’t want to live with the results of the survey,” said Murphy, who served on the committee. He said the unions would still be satisfied if AISD simply adopted the federal scale.
But the district doesn’t want to do that. Instead, AISD wants to use its scale but only budget for average wages, exclusive of benefits: For example, AISD would pay contractors $16.97 per hour for ironworkers. According to Larry Throm, AISD’s chief financial officer, this allows the district to get the most school for its bond dollar. “I’m looking after the citizens,” he said. “We have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that all the projects authorized by the voters were completed. So to that extent we have to carefully monitor the expenses.”
Throm points out that funding benefits would add 13% to labor costs, or about $20 million to the district’s expenses; moreover, only a slim majority – 52.8% – of local firms provide benefits in the first place.
But Conrad Masters, one of about 40 laborers who attended the board meeting to voice their displeasure, said that siding with the 47.2% of businesses that don’t provide benefits will have dangerous repercussions as competing firms bid to provide AISD construction services at the lowest price. “It will reward those employers who don’t provide health insurance, and will encourage others to drop theirs,” he said.
The board will decide whom to reward on March 28.
This article appears in March 18 • 2005.