A fossil is a plant or animal that was once alive, but after death, rather than decaying, it became set in stone and left an imprint of itself in stone. This is a good description of certain laws that made sense many, many moons ago when they originally came into being, but have long since served their purpose. Like a fossil, they refuse to go away.

Pennsylvania seems to assimilate more fossil laws than other states. Some are just silly, like the one that forbids fortune-telling. [No kidding, check it out: PA Title 18, 7104 (a) Fortune telling]. It’s a misdemeanor of the third degree, but if the Commonwealth allows people to waste their money who believe they are going to win the lottery, why not let them waste their money on a fortune-teller?

Then there are holdovers like the law that states an automobile cannot be sold on a Sunday, which is the reason why car dealerships are closed on Sundays. (What’s the point of being open if you can’t sell anything?) It’s a vestige of Pennsylvania’s blue laws designed to keep Sunday as a day of rest. Great idea, but not if a person can buy everything else under the sun other than a car.

At a recent Lycoming County Commissioner’s work session, it was noted that State Senator Gene Yaw was trying to get a change in one of Pennsylvania’s worst ‘fossil’ laws — the Prevailing Wage Law. This law was enacted in 1961 to protect construction workers from out-of-state competition, mandating that contractors pay the wages that “prevail” in each region on all government construction projects more than $25,000. Senator Yaw serves as Vice-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and took time during a budget hearing for the Department of Labor and Industry to question Pennsylvania’s current prevailing wage law.

Senator Yaw noted in the 59 years that this law has been on the books; it has never been amended despite many attempts to do so. If the $25,000 threshold had been adjusted for inflation, it would be more like $200,000 today. The fact that there has been no adjustment is because this protects union workers who work for higher wages than non-union workers. This is one of the reasons that “Prevailing Wage” is almost a swear word when municipalities look to build or repair something because they know that labor costs will be as much as double or more than they would be on a similar project in the private sector.

The prevailing wage law is cut from the same cloth as binding arbitration, teacher and transit worker strikes, and the lack of a right-to-work law. Michigan got rid of its Prevailing Wage Law in 2018 and immediately reaped a saving of $400 million in government construction costs. The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy took the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s 2017 annual report and noted that $2.57 billion was spent on 703 bridge and road projects. If even 10 percent of that were reduced, the savings to the state would be an extra $257 million to spend on more projects. The real savings of removing the prevailing wage would be more like double that amount or more.

Senator Yaw brought up a piece of legislation that he sponsored, which would raise the threshold for the Prevailing Wage Act from $25,000 to $185,000, though Yaw points out that a threshold of $215,000 would be sensible based on the Consumer Price Index. It is probably too much to ask of the Pennsylvania Legislature and Governor’s office to be sensible, but let’s never give up hope. Write, call, or bang on the door of your elected state officials and tell them that it is time this fossil needs to be put in a museum. Senator Yaw is right. Let’s get laws on the books that make sense and save money for Pennsylvania taxpayers.

Larry Stout welcomes your comments or input. He can be reached by email: lionwebbweekly@gmail.com.