LANSING - The city's lawmakers are reviewing a proposal that would establish a preferred local worker rule as well as what would probably be the broadest prevailing wage rule ever established by a municipality in Michigan.

At the Oct. 11 meeting of the Lansing City Council's Committee of the Whole, a large group of supporters and detractors of the law gathered to show how they stood. A number of union members in the audience wore green "We build Lansing" T-shirts indicating their support for the proposed law.

John Canzano, a union attorney who drafted the measure and spoke on behalf of supporters, said the first part of the law would require contractors who undertake projects that involve city taxpayer money to first hire local workers. "That's not unusual," he said.

The other portion of the proposal would require those same contractors to pay a prevailing wage to their construction workforce on potentially a broader-than-usual variety of projects.
For example, Canzano said municipally sponsored prevailing wage laws usually are applied to city or township construction projects that are directly funded, in whole or in part, by the municipality. The proposal in Lansing, however, would have prevailing wage rules apply to projects beyond those that are not owned by the city, which have the involvement of peripheral city funding like tax abatements, loan guarantees or subsidies in the financing of the project.

"That's pretty groundbreaking here in Michigan," Canzano said. "I don't know anywhere else in Michigan where this has been attempted."

The council voted unanimously to set a public hearing on the issue without sending it to a committee, which was a positive development for supporters of the ordinance. The ordinance is expected to be officially introduced before the entire council on Oct. 29.

Standing against the ordinance are the anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors and various business groups, including the the Lansing Economic Development Corp. Reflecting their point of view, that group's president, Bob Trezise, said in a published report that the law would be "a job killer and a developer's dead end."

Patrick "Shorty" Gleason, president of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, said "there's some work to do" with city lawmakers before the measure comes up for a vote, "but the law would be wonderful for workers. Prevailing wage laws are a plus in any community."