Beckley Register-Herald -Union members continue to flock to the State Capitol to combat legislation they say will hurt their livelihoods. Friday morning, several dozen sat in the House of Delegates galleries and more on the floor during an hour-long public hearing on repealing the prevailing wage, the base pay that companies must pay their employees who work on public projects. Read
But oddly, it wasn’t workers who were speaking against SB2. For the most part it was business owners who asked legislators to keep the prevailing wage so that they could keep employees.
Mark Rigsby, who owns a construction company, said he is a conservative Republican. He said labor issues taken up by the Legislature this year won’t impact businesses, but will make another difference.
“We just won’t have any employees to work for us anymore,” he said. Rigsby said he contracted a job in Dickenson County, Va., to build a courthouse, but sub-contracted the job. When he visited, however, he found “30 or 40 men on the job.” The second contractor had sub-contracted the job, as well, and to someone who had hired foreign workers.
