GOVERNMENT ADVOCACY
It is extremely important for businesses in our industry to have representation at the State Legislature and with state and local agencies to ensure that our voices are heard before laws and regulations that impact our businesses are passed. WAB ensures this representation at the State Legislature with a registered lobbyist and attendance at state agency meetings.
Occasionally, when matters dictate our involvement, WAB will get involved local government issues that have an impact on our members in that locality or region.
CURRENT ISSUES
RESIDENT PREFERENCE
Wyoming law provides for a 5% resident contractor preference in state, county and local government construction. The preference law helps Wyoming based businesses and their
employees to make it through the hard times of the state's inevitable "boom and bust" cycles. The preference law also encourages businesses from outside of Wyoming to invest in
the state by opening offices, hiring employees and paying taxes in Wyoming so that they may qualify for the preference in public works contracts.
The preference law further encourages Wyoming business growth through the requirement that resident general contractors use a majority of resident sub-contractors when constructing a project in which resident preference has been claimed.
Unfortunately, the State Legislature has recently watered down resident preference laws by changing the definition of who can qualify as a resident business, allowing any business who opens an office in the state to qualify for the preference, instead of also requiring a significant investment of employees, investors, and owners.
The Legislature further undermined the preference law by reducing the percentage of resident sub-contractors that must be utilized on a preference project to 70%.
As a result of these changes, it becomes even more likely that the state, counties, school districts, cities and towns will fall victim to unethical contractors who move into the state to take advantage of prosperous times to construct poor quality projects, harm local sub-contractors through unethical price shopping, and cannot be held accountable for their work when they depart Wyoming once the boom ends.
The Wyoming Associated Builders urges Legislators to return Wyoming's preference laws to their original language and intent. To do so will encourage long-term growth of businesses willing to make a real investment in Wyoming, give encouragement to our resident businesses even through the hard economic times, and to protect the state, counties and localities from unethical business practices of contractors who cannot be held accountable for their actions or poor quality work.
WYOMING WORKER'S COMPENSATION - CO-EMPLOYEE IMMUNITY
Wyoming businesses pay into the state's Worker's Compensation program in an effort to protect both themselves from unfounded injury lawsuits and to protect their employees in the
event an they are injured on the job, an unintended loophole in the system allows co-workers to be sued by an individual who is injured on the job, even if the individual is
injured through no fault of co-workers.
The effects of this loophole are wide ranging. Even though owners pay into the program to reduce the likelihood of unfounded injury lawsuits, if the owner performs work at a jobsite, that owner may be considered an employee and may be open to legal action as the result of a co-worker's injury, no matter who is actually at fault, if anyone.
Even more of a concern to Wyoming's contractors is the fact that project managers and supervisors may be at risk to lawsuit from their subordinates. This fact alone makes it difficult to recruit and maintain capable leadership for our workforce.
The Wyoming Associated Builders urges the Legislature to address this loophole and reduce the likelihood of unfounded lawsuits against Wyoming businesses and their employees.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Wyoming's construction industry is in need of employees and encourages legal, ethical immigration to help meet our workforce needs. However WAB is opposed to illegal immigration
and the businesses that illegally hire aliens in an attempt to keep wages artificially low.
Businesses that employ illegal immigrants have an unfair advantage to businesses that follow the law; they can pay lower wages, offer fewer benefits, and do not report employee taxes. These businesses should to be cited for these unethical, illegal business practices.
We oppose any amnesty or "fast track" to citizenship for illegal aliens as it only creates further incentive for them to illegally enter the US, and would continue to encourage the hiring of illegal aliens by unethical businesses.
We further oppose any legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to receive government benefits, including but not limited to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc., prior to or following any amnesty agreement.
The Wyoming Associated Builders encourages Congress to crack down on businesses that hire Illegal aliens. Doing so would reduce employment opportunities for illegal aliens and therefore less incentive for them to illegally come into the United States.
SMALL BUSINESS HEALTH PLANS
WAB is the sponsor of the Wyoming Associated Builders Insurance Trust, or WABIT. WABIT is a comprehensive health insurance program owned by our participants and provides health
benefits to our participants and their employees.
As a trade association with our own insurance trust, we understand and believe in the value of small business health plans.
The Wyoming Associated Builders supports legislation that will allow more small businesses and associations to bond together to establish health benefit plans for themselves and their employees.
This would broaden the scope of ERISA and Taft-Hartley laws to help make up for the disparity between state laws and make it more equitable for businesses to establish such plans, even if they lie across state borders.
DAVIS BACON ACT, PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS and LABOR UNIONS
WAB subscribes to the Merit Shop Philosophy, that is that we believe in the competitive bidding process in all projects, public and private, we further believe that our employees
should be fairly compensated based upon work performance and experience.
The Davis Bacon Act, Project Labor Agreements, and most labor unions fail to uphold these core principles.
The Wyoming Associated Builders opposes further expansion of the Davis Bacon Act. WAB urges Congress to curb efforts to give advantage to labor unions rather than the businesses that maintain our workforce, pay taxes, and build our projects.
Further, WAB opposes any legislation that would exclude non-union businesses from bidding on projects paid for by everyone's tax dollars, including non-union businesses. Such legislation will drive up construction costs by excluding many businesses from the bidding process.
