For the third time in as many years, the Wage & Hour Division (W&HD) of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth (DeLEG) has again changed the rules that relate to truck drivers and their coverage by state prevailing wage. These most recent changes were published without input by, or advanced notice to MITA via MDOT Bureau of Highway Instructional Memorandum (BOHIM) 2009-07, Prevailing Wage Oversight Procedures.
Under the new state prevailing wage rules relating to truck drivers, only bona fide owner-operators and truck drivers employed by a company selling a material or product to the contractor would not be covered by state prevailing wage. An example of this second scenario would be a truck driver employed by a pipe manufacturer who delivers and drops off pipe at the project site.
Owner-operators hired on a state prevailing wage project must still submit certified payrolls with the notation “owner-operator”, but need not show the hours worked or wages paid.
In general, all other truck drivers providing transportation services to/from or on a state prevailing wage project, regardless of the method of hire (employee, subcontract, purchase order, invoice, or brokered), would be covered by the state prevailing wage provisions. A state prevailing wage project is a project funded 100% with state funds (for MDOT let projects this means no “Federal No.” or “Federal Item”). Federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage “site of work” and “de minimis” criteria are not applicable on state prevailing wage projects.
Although frustrated with this third W&HD change in the rules, MITA staff will continue to work with the W&HD and MDOT leadership for a reinterpretation on this matter. Not anticipating a significant amount of success with the current W&HD administration, MITA has requested an opinion from the Attorney General relative to DeLEG’s authority to arbitrarily change its enforcement positions.
In your preparations to bid on future projects we recommend and encourage that all members review and be familiar with MDOT BOHIM 2009-07, not only as it relates to the coverage of truck drivers by state prevailing wage or Davis-Bacon, but for MDOT prevailing wage compliance procedures in general. Click here to view MDOT BOHIM 2009-07.
Click here to view MITA’s revised one page Truck Driver Scenarios document for a comparison of how truck drivers are covered by Davis-Bacon and state prevailing wage.
If you have any questions about the applicable prevailing wage for a project you are preparing to bid, or you have any questions about these most recent truck driver rule changes, contact Glenn Bukoski at glennbukoski@mi-ita.com or Doug Needham at douglasneedham@mi-ita.com or call them at the MITA office at 517-347-8336.
