Opinion ID: 2305399
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: alleged lack of standards and indefiniteness

Text: The appellants' attack based upon the alleged lack of standards and guides by which the Board of Estimates is to be governed is, we think, untenable. In Ruark v. Engineers' Union, 157 Md. 576, 146 A. 797, the validity of Chapter 94 of the Acts of 1910 was under attack. That statute, a public local law applicable to Baltimore City, was similar to the Ordinance with which we are now concerned. Its provisions as to eight hours constituting a day's work on City contracts were almost identical with those of the Ordinance. A proviso with regard to the amount of wages was that they should not be less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed    in the execution of any contract or contracts in any public work within the City of Baltimore. We see no substantial difference between the provisions as to locality in the statute involved in the Ruark Case and those in the Ordinance now before us. It is true, as the appellants say, that the Ordinance would apply to work on one of the City reservoirs or at the municipal airport, which are outside of the corporate limits of Baltimore City. All of these are within approximately twenty miles of the City Hall, and some are much closer. We think that it would be an undue refinement to insist that locality must be so narrowly construed as to cover only the area within the City limits and to exclude nearby City-owned property. There is no showing that conditions are so different at one of the remote reservoirs as to cause a different wage scale to prevail there. If there were, that might call for the application of the saving clauses of both the statute and the Ordinance; but no such question is before us and there is no occasion to decide it. In the Ruark Case, the Court held that the word `locality' defines a region, with the public undertaking as an axis or focal point, throughout which region the daily wage of the particular class to which the worker belongs is uniform. The Court also held the term to be sufficiently definite. We also think that there is little real difference between the terms current rate of per diem wages and general prevailing hourly wage rates. In the Ruark Case, the Court said that the term `current rate' means the charge for or valuation of the daily labor in question according to a scale or standard generally received or established by common consent or estimation. Wages, particularly those of such numerous classes as laborers, workmen, and mechanics, tend to uniformity and stability and so to an average or ordinary rate, which varies somewhat from place to place, and which Adam Smith speaks of as the `natural rates of wages' at the time and place in which they commonly prevail. It is true that in recent years wages have not been noted for stability (See Mr. Holland's testimony above referred to.), but it is also true that any contractor bidding on a job must have at least a fairly good idea of what labor costs he must meet. The City's prevailing wage scales tend towards certainty in one respect  in that they tell a contractor what his minimum rates of compensation must be. Prevailing wage requirements in public contracts are by no means peculiar to the City of Baltimore. See, for example, the Walsh-Healey Act, U.S.C.A., Title 41, Secs. 35-45, and the Bacon-Davis Act, U.S.C.A., Title 40, Sec. 276a, et seq. The duties of the Secretary of Labor in determining prevailing wages under those Acts are somewhat similar to those of the Board of Estimates under the Ordinance here involved with regard to determining prevailing wages. There are also prevailing wage laws in other states. The validity of such laws has been upheld since Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207. The appellants rely heavily upon Connally v. General Const. Co., 269 U.S. 385, in which a prevailing wage statute of Oklahoma which carried criminal penalties for its violation was held invalid on the ground that a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law. That case was also pressed upon this Court in the Ruark Case, but this Court did not then consider it controlling and noted that convictions under the criminal provisions of Chapter 94 of the Maryland Act of 1910 had been upheld by this Court in Sweeten v. State and in Elkan v. State, 122 Md. 634 and 642, respectively, which had both been affirmed by the Supreme Court in a memorandum opinion sub nom. Elkan v. Maryland, 239 U.S. 634. We should have to overrule the Ruark Case on this point in order to sustain the appellants' contentions. It is not necessary, however, to go into that question, since neither Chapter 653 nor the Ordinance undertakes to impose any criminal liability; and, in addition, the contractor is faced with no uncertain standard, because the wage scale to which he must conform is made a part of his contract. Cases in other states sustain the validity of prevailing wage laws similar to the Ordinance. Campbell v. City of New York, 244 N.Y. 317, 155 N.E. 628; Bradley v. Casey, 415 Ill. 576, 114 N.E.2d 681; Metropolitan Water Dist. v. Whitsett, 215 Cal. 400, 10 P.2d 751. The case last cited involved a statute indistinguishable in substance from the Ordinance here involved, and cited the Ruark Case in reaching its conclusion. Before leaving this branch of the case we may point out that Chapter 653 of the Acts of 1945 filled the gap which led to the decision in Baltimore v. Employers' Ass'n, 162 Md. 124, 159 A. 267, in which it was held that the City authorities were not authorized to establish a scale of current per diem wages, notwithstanding that contractors and sub-contractors on City contracts were required by Chapter 94 of the Acts of 1910 to pay not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed.