Off-Site, Pre-fabrication Legislation Not Approved

Under the Washington State Supreme Court decision in the Everett Concrete Products case, the court ruled that products specifically pre-fabricated for a public works project off-site were subject to prevailing wages for the county in which the product was fabricated.

Since then a number of fabrication firms have moved across the Washington border to Idaho and Oregon where they are not subject to Washington's prevailing wage regulations, thus enabling them to pay less than the prevailing wage for the closest Washington county.

HB 2864 was an attempt to begin to collect data on the extent of the problem with out of state fabricators. The bill, which passed the House did not come up for a vote on the floor of the Senate and therefore died for this session. The bill has gone through a number of changes since introduced, but it is still problematic from a public owner's perspective. The language of the bill is not clear and adds additional requirements for contractors and owners that are difficult to interpret. Hopefully, there can be some additional thought devoted to fixing the flawed language in the bill for the 2009 session.