Opinion ID: 2305399
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: adoption of prevailing wage scales

Text: The appellants' next assault is directed against the scales of prevailing wages adopted by the Board of Estimates. There have been several such scales since the passage of the Ordinance in 1945. The first was adopted in September, 1945, and did not break down City contracts into different classifications. Ninety-six separate prevailing wage scales were included. At that time wages were still subject to Federal wartime controls. About six months later the first classification based on different types of work was adopted. Mr. Paul L. Holland became the Chief Engineer of Baltimore in January, 1948, and continued in that office until October, 1954. As Chief Engineer he was a member of the Board of Estimates throughout that period. In August, 1948, he submitted a report and recommendations to the Board of Estimates with regard to wage scales. He pointed out wide variations in wages in certain trades and the difficulty or impossibility, in his opinion, of determining prevailing wages in some instances. He recommended the establishment of two classifications of work, the first, Building Construction and the second Other Than Building Construction, with fifteen categories of workmen in the first and three in the second. In reporting his recommendations for these classifications and the minimum wage rates set forth, he stated, I believe that the rates recommended above do, in fact, fairly represent the generally prevailing rates in Baltimore City and are fair to the classes of laborers concerned and to the taxpayers of the City. Not long afterwards it developed that the minimum wage rates were seriously out of line with the wage scales prevailing in shipyards and were in fact substantially higher, though the shipyard rates were practically the union scale in all yards in Baltimore. As a result, a third classification was set up by the Board of Estimates on February 23, 1949, known as Shipyard  Marine Work (Building or Repair). A year later the engineering firm of Whitman, Requardt and Associates was employed to advise and assist the Board in the determination of general prevailing hourly wage rates. Mr. Requardt of that firm presented a report to the Board, dated June 29, 1950, in which he recommended the establishment of three classifications: for (1) new building construction (including major remodeling of buildings); (2) heavy structures and foundations, grading and paving, utility structures and minor building repair and maintenance; and (3) shipbuilding and repair. He later supplemented or clarified these recommendations. In making his report and recommendations Mr. Requardt stated his understanding of the word prevailing as meaning prevalent, most general, common, predominant or current and as not meaning either an average or a median. This, we think, was in accord with the Ruark Case, above cited. Mr. Requardt very frankly admitted the difficulty of his task, but his firm has had some forty years' experience in construction work and has been engaged in many large projects. He drew upon the experience of the firm and he sent out questionnaires to numerous contractors, many of whom responded, and he used their replies and other information available to him. He did not make use of either Federal or State wage scales, and the figures which he recommended differed materially from the scale of wages paid by the City to its own employees. On November 8th, 1950, the Board of Estimates adopted Mr. Requardt's recommendations. Mr. Frank Clark Ellis, President of the Baltimore Building and Construction Trade Council protested against some of the rates. On July 25, 1951, according to the minutes of the Board, on recommendation of the City Solicitor and the Chief Engineer made after considering Mr. Ellis' request and after study and consideration of prevailing wages paid, the Board of Estimates adopted a new wage scale, broken down into three classifications. In his oral testimony in this case Mr. Holland denies having made this recommendation. One of the principal changes made by the new classification was the transfer of contracts for dams, bridges, docks, filtration plants, sewage treatment works, pumping stations and similar works and buildings and of other types of heavy construction, the major value of which is in the substructure, from classification 2 to classification 1. The revised rates were made retroactive to July 18, 1951, thereby, the appellants say, making the higher rates applicable to the Liberty Dam project which cost over $4,476,000. Further changes were made in the wage scale in February, 1953, largely on the basis of and with one exception in conformity with, a further report submitted by Mr. Requardt to bring data on prevailing wages up to date. Some further changes were made in July, 1953, in wage rates in classification 2 in accordance with a report presented to the Board of Estimates by Mr. North, of Whitman, Requardt and Associates. Extensive public hearings were held by the Board in connection with the 1951 and 1953 changes in wage scales. The appellants complain that there are three different prevailing wages and not any one prevailing wage is a result of there being three classifications dealing with the same general type of work. The City was not unaware of this problem, as a letter from its then labor consultant, the Honorable Simon E. Sobeloff, to an official of the U.S. Department of Labor shows. The appellants have submitted a vast amount of detailed data showing comparisons of wages. They also complain that the wage scale under classification 1 is substantially the union scale, that the wage scale under classification 2 is substantially an open shop scale and that the scale under classification 3 is substantially another union scale. These contentions are not without force, but we do not think that the evidence is such as to sustain the charge that the Board acted in an arbitrary and unreasonable manner in establishing the three different classifications and the wage scales thereunder. It may be noted that classification 3 came into existence because the City found that prevailing wages existing in land construction work were very materially different from the wages actually prevailing in shipyard work. It is too well settled to call for discussion that reasonable classifications do not contravene constitutional limitations, and the text of the Ordinance contemplates and authorizes classification. Chapter 653, it will be recalled, allows extensive powers to be conferred upon the Board of Estimates by ordinance; and Section 2 of the Ordinance empowers the Board to adopt,    modify    or amend    schedules of minimum hourly wage rates to be paid to any and all classes of laborers, workmen or mechanics directly employed by any contractor or    subcontractor on any of the various types of work or projects mentioned in, or contemplated by, Section 1. (Italics supplied.) The proviso contained in this Section states that the schedules of minimum hourly wage rates    shall not be less    than the general prevailing hourly wage rates being paid to laborers, workmen and mechanics for doing work of a similar character   . (Italics ours.) The language of the Ordinance is broad enough to support the types of classifications and sub-classifications adopted by the Board. We think that there are substantial differences between the three types of work. It is also clear that most of the classifications here under attack were made in accordance with the recommendations of a disinterested firm of engineers of great experience in construction work and sufficiently versed in wage costs to prepare a cost index giving the wage costs of various types of construction which appears annually in the construction costs issue of the Engineering News Record. The qualifications of the firm were attested to by Mr. Holland, who appears in the somewhat anomalous position of an original defendant who participated in  or at least is not recorded as dissenting from  many of the actions of the Board of Estimates now complained of, and of a star witness for the appellants. We do not find from the record before us that the action of the Board in establishing the three separate classifications of work and of wage scales thereunder was arbitrary or capricious. Therefore, we should not be warranted in striking them down, in toto, as the appellants ask us to do.