Pa. Prevailing Wage Act, Revisited

The Pa. Prevailing Wage Act mandates that workers on Pennsylvania public construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, or repair projects costing more than $25,000, other than those involving “maintenance work,” must be paid the general prevailing minimum wage rates. “Maintenance work” is defined in the Act as “the repair of existing facilities when the size, type or extent of such facilities is not thereby changed or increased.”

According to the Pa. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Borough of Youngwood v. Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Appeals Board, the definition of maintenance work must be narrowly construed:

[B]ecause the Act provides that “public work” includes “repair” and that the exception to “public work” (i.e., “maintenance work”) includes “repair” of a specific type, it logically follows that the General Assembly intended that “maintenance work” be considered a lesser or minor form of “repair.” Therefore, we hold that in construing the Act, the focus must fall principally on the Act’s clear mandate that prevailing wages are to be paid to workers on public works projects that meet the criteria of 43 P.S. § 165-2(5), taking into consideration that “maintenance work” is an exception to this mandate and must be narrowly construed. The linguistic construction of “maintenance work,” in turn, must recognize that the Act defines “maintenance work” as a subset of “repair,” and must be accordingly viewed in this narrow manner.

The Commonwealth Court has further held that “maintenance work” is “the repair of existing facilities, that is, facilities that at some point were operating properly but have now failed to do so.”

So, how has the Act been applied by the courts in actual situations?  Here are a few examples:

• The re-roofing of eight public buildings was found to be repair work, rather than maintenance work, because the entire roof of each building was replaced, rather than simply being partially overhauled or patched.
• Work on a sewer system involving replacement of clay pipe in manholes with PVC pipes was deemed to be maintenance work as it was done to allow the failed sewer to operate properly.
• The removal and replacement of entire sidewalks and curbing was found to be reconstruction work and not maintenance work.
• When a telephone system was replaced at a state building, with old conduit and cable being replaced with new conduit and cable, and existing telephone poles and tunnels being reused, the work was deemed to be public work and not maintenance work.

The Prevailing Wage Act can be found here.  The Prevailing Wage Act regulations can be found here.

If you need assistance on a prevailing wage issue, call or email me for a no-cost consultation.  I’ll be happy to assist in anyway possible.