LANSING - No one ever accused the anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of being impatient, or unwilling to pay hefty legal bills, when it comes to the effort to rescind Michigan's Prevailing Wage Act.

On Dec. 9, the Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments from attorneys for the ABC and the Michigan Building Trades Council (MBTC) together with the State of Michigan on whether the ABC-Saginaw Valley Area Chapter had the legal standing to go to the courts to challenge the legality of the state's prevailing law.

The high court hadn't issued a decision at press time. According to MBTC attorney John Canzano, building trades unions probably won't be happy with whatever ruling is handed down by the state's high court justices - but the prevailing wage law itself is probably not immediately threatened.

"There's a lot of technical stuff going on here," Canzano said. "But your members are going to be concerned with one thing: are they going to continue to earn the prevailing wage? For the foreseeable future, I think the answer is 'yes.' "

The ABC originally filed a lawsuit in what it expected would be an employer-friendly Midland County Circuit Court in 2000, alleging that the Prevailing Wage Act is unconstitutional under Michigan law. The Midland court gave the ABC a partial victory, but when the case went to the Michigan Court of Appeals, the legal panel ruled against the ABC in August 2003. The panel ruled that the law is not "impermissibly vague" as the ABC alleged and that the injuries sought by the ABC "are at this point merely hypothetical."

The case before the Supreme Court was not about the legality of the Michigan Prevailing Wage Act - although Canzano said that a majority of the high court is so conservative that it could have used the occasion to throw the law out.

Instead, the high court was asked to agree or disagree with the state Court of Appeals ruling, which effectively said that the ABC has not been injured by the prevailing wage law.

Ominously for the union side, according to Gongwer News Service, "the question of whether an injury exists due to being forced to pay wages above a company's typical standard seemed to interest several justices. Typical was the question posed by Justice Robert Young, Jr.: 'If I'm an employer and I'm forced to pay higher wages, why is that not an injury?' "

Canzano said the high court could do any number of things in response to the legal arguments. The best-case scenario would be for the high court to dismiss the case.

More likely, he said, is that the court will send the case back to the Midland Circuit Court or the Court of Appeals panel for further review. The high court could issue a written "road map" for how the ABC could obtain legal standing to challenge the prevailing wage law in a lawsuit.

"The Supreme Court heard testimony only on whether the ABC has the standing to bring the case," Canzano said, "and not on the validity of the law itself, and that's a good thing."