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 each contractor and subcontractor performing work on an owner or developer, as defined, undertaking any public works project and any covered entity, as defined for these purposes as a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, joint venture, or other legal entity, that develops or undertakes such project, 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 also apply this requirement to contractors, subcontractors, and covered entities that are developing, undertaking, or performing work on an owner or developer that undertakes a development project for which contractors are required to maintain and verify payroll records, as specified. that includes work subject to the requirements of public works. The bill would subject a contractor, subcontractor, or covered entity, an owner or developer, for failing to comply with the provisions of this act, to a penalty by the commissioner, as specified, and would deposit the penalties into a specified fund. This bill would require the Director of Industrial Relations to adopt rules to govern the release of those records, as specified.