Volunteer Labor for Environmental Projects
By
Donna Gordon Blankinship
California recently resolved an apparent conflict between labor laws and environmental work. At issue was the use of volunteer labor on projects that are at least partially paid for with public funds, and whether using volunteer labor would violate the state's prevailing-wage law. As volunteers increasingly participate in stream restoration, watershed monitoring, and other projects, many of which are funded with public money, this situation bears watching by other states as well.
California watershed-restoration projects ground to a halt a year and a half ago as government officials and lobbyists from environmental and labor organizations struggled to clarify whether state law would allow volunteers to labor at public works projects. The eyes and ears of government, labor, and environmental organizations from around the country turned toward California after the state's Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) fined an environmental group $33,549 for mixing volunteer and paid labor at a $250,000 public works project. The DIR director ruled that the Sacramento Watersheds Action Group underpaid college students for a project involving a creek cleanup and tree planting along a highway near Redding in northern California. The state determined that more than 60 workers should have earned prevailing wages for hauling trash out of the canyon and planting trees along Sulphur Creek in March 2003.
California law had required prevailing wages for crews on projects using more than $1,000 in public funding, but this was the first time the law had been interpreted this way and a fine levied. Nearly every state in the nation has a prevailing-wage law, but the dollar cutoff is usually much higher, such as $25,000 in Montana and nearly $19,000 in Ohio. Partial exemptions for projects like environmental restoration work are in place in some states. A 1989 California law allows volunteer labor on public works with permission from the DIR director. The agency talks to labor union representatives before deciding if the volunteer work would take paying jobs away from skilled workers.
California State Assemblywoman Loni Hancock introduced a bill, AB 2690, to change the state's labor code. The bill, which passed in August, exempts from the prevailing wage provisions of the Labor Code work performed by a volunteer or volunteer coordinator, or by members of the California Conservation Corps or of certified Community Conservation Corps.
California's experience with the issue could have implications elsewhere around the country. While the bill was still pending, Hancock said she believed that resolution of the issue in California to the satisfaction of all parties would involve both semantics and policy. While the debate happened last spring, Hancock said nobody involved wanted to see environmental work end and no one wished to prevent Girl Scouts, students, and retirees from helping out in their own communities. She said the goal was to carefully define the issue and to find a way to pay the people who should be paid, while also keeping volunteers working on environmental projects.
"In think this is an unintended consequence, but it has resulted in a lot of heat," Hancock said in May of the original action. "We're trying to shed some light on it. I actually think it is not very difficult if we sit down together to do this." Hancock, a second-year assemblywoman who previously was mayor of Berkeley, CA, added, "I believe that if we can visualize it, we can describe it."
Cathryn Hilliard, executive director of the Construction Industry Force Account Council in California, says laborers and trade union representatives brought the issue to the attention of the DIR. "The original law was passed because people in the area needed work," Hilliard says, not because anyone wanted to stop volunteers from doing environmental restoration.
Intangible Values of Volunteerism
Stefan Lorenzato, statewide watershed coordinator for the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), said in mid-May that the parties to this issue had come a long way from their original positions, but he noted that the issues surrounding this debate are both complicated and philosophical. How does paying prevailing wage for restoration work affect how much it costs for restoration projects? Will paying people for this work prevent groups from doing what needs to be done? But there are other factors that contribute to the debate and make this an even more important issue, Lorenzato explained.
"Volunteerism is an underpinning of a lot of watershed-restoration work that is done at the community level," he said. "You don't get the same kind of response from the community if you pay people to do the work."
Lorenzato said that "getting the work done" is the least of the reasons for using volunteers. Educating the community, getting community buy-in, and helping young people grow up caring about the environment are all more important reasons for involving volunteers in these kinds of public works projects. Studies have shown that service learning is one of the best ways for young people to get the environmental bug while it's still possible to influence their world view, before age 15 or 16. He said states don't have the money to pay students to do this kind of learning, so their education on environmental stewardship could be short-circuited by laws like the one being enforced in California.
"That's the reason it's such a big deal for us in California. It wasn't so much that we were worried about the price tag," Lorenzato said. "We were worried about the sustainability of our long-term investment."
Volunteer labor has been seen as a key element in projects that involve Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater rule because these kinds of jobs combine environmental restoration with both public education and outreach. Across the country, volunteers help monitor water quality, plant trees, and do other watershed restoration work.
Origins of the Prevailing Wage Law
The issue of prevailing wage on public works projects dates back to the Depression, when Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act in 1931 to prevent migrant workers from undercutting local labor in the construction and building trades industries. The federal law sets standards for paying laborers and mechanics in many federally funded construction projects. The prevailing wage must be paid to workers doing any kind of construction, alteration, or repair of any public building or public works in projects where federal funds exceed $2,000. Most state statutes are modeled on the Davis-Bacon Act, but many of them exempt volunteer workers from prevailing wage requirements.
Congress also created a federal exemption called the "Community Improvement Volunteer Act of 1994," which exempts from Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements volunteers working for public entities and private nonprofit organizations, according to a pamphlet on the issue created by the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. The pamphlet is called "Negotiating the Legal Maze to Volunteer Service" and is available online at www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/resourcekit/Negotiating/prevailing.html.
To meet the federal volunteer exemption, workers must volunteer to perform their services for civic, charitable, or humanitarian purposes; serve without promise expectation, or receipt of compensation except for expenses, reasonable benefits, or a nominal fee that is not tied to productivity; provide services freely and without pressure or coercion from any employer; and offer their services solely for personal reasons or pleasure. Volunteer work many not directly or indirectly benefit any contractor performing work on the same project and the volunteer may not be employed by the contractor or subcontractor or by the public agency to perform the same kind of work for which he or she is volunteering.
According to the Interstate Labor Standards Association, 31 states have their own prevailing wage laws. According to a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, labor unions often volunteer their work for nonprofit organizations, so any environmental group that cannot afford to pay workers to complete a project always has the option to approach the union for help. In California, after 1989, such groups were required to file a form with the state before using volunteers on any public works projects, and if the work involves construction, alteration, demolition, or repair work, or work to support construction such as planning, design, or assessments.
The amendment to the California Labor Code is in part a response to a 2001 change in the law that tightened up the definition of "public funds" to include grant money and created an unintended consequence to limit volunteer work on watershed projects. The law required that all workers on public works projects involving at least $1,000 in public funds be paid the prevailing wage if even one person is paid for work on the project.
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Like many other states, California gives millions of dollars a year to watershed-restoration projects and has encouraged the use of volunteers for those projects. In response to the 2001 change in the law, the state sent out letters to organizations that do environmental work to warn them of the new restrictions. The state DWR's Urban Streams Restoration Program stopped giving out grants, for example.
Vern Goehring, a environmental policy consultant lobbying in California on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups, says California has had prevailing wage laws for a long time, but this debate did not begin until after the law was changed in 2001, and really not until late 2003 when the first complaint was filed. He characterizes the 2001 change as an honest attempt to close "loopholes" that labor representatives though were being exploited. "Nobody officially representing labor said they were happy about that, that their intent was to stop volunteers," Goehring says.
Author's Bio: Seattle, WA–based author Donna Gordon Blankinship specializes in stormwater topics.
January-February 2005
Volunteer Labor for Environmental Projects
By
Donna Gordon Blankinship
California recently resolved an apparent conflict between labor laws and environmental work. At issue was the use of volunteer labor on projects that are at least partially paid for with public funds, and whether using volunteer labor would violate the state's prevailing-wage law. As volunteers increasingly participate in stream restoration, watershed monitoring, and other projects, many of which are funded with public money, this situation bears watching by other states as well. California watershed-restoration projects ground to a halt a year and a half ago as government officials and lobbyists from environmental and labor organizations struggled to clarify whether state law would allow volunteers to labor at public works projects. The eyes and ears of government, labor, and environmental organizations from around the country turned toward California after the state's Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) fined an environmental group $33,549 for mixing volunteer and paid labor at a $250,000 public works project. The DIR director ruled that the Sacramento Watersheds Action Group underpaid college students for a project involving a creek cleanup and tree planting along a highway near Redding in northern California. The state determined that more than 60 workers should have earned prevailing wages for hauling trash out of the canyon and planting trees along Sulphur Creek in March 2003.
California law had required prevailing wages for crews on projects using more than $1,000 in public funding, but this was the first time the law had been interpreted this way and a fine levied. Nearly every state in the nation has a prevailing-wage law, but the dollar cutoff is usually much higher, such as $25,000 in Montana and nearly $19,000 in Ohio. Partial exemptions for projects like environmental restoration work are in place in some states. A 1989 California law allows volunteer labor on public works with permission from the DIR director. The agency talks to labor union representatives before deciding if the volunteer work would take paying jobs away from skilled workers.
California State Assemblywoman Loni Hancock introduced a bill, AB 2690, to change the state's labor code. The bill, which passed in August, exempts from the prevailing wage provisions of the Labor Code work performed by a volunteer or volunteer coordinator, or by members of the California Conservation Corps or of certified Community Conservation Corps.
California's experience with the issue could have implications elsewhere around the country. While the bill was still pending, Hancock said she believed that resolution of the issue in California to the satisfaction of all parties would involve both semantics and policy. While the debate happened last spring, Hancock said nobody involved wanted to see environmental work end and no one wished to prevent Girl Scouts, students, and retirees from helping out in their own communities. She said the goal was to carefully define the issue and to find a way to pay the people who should be paid, while also keeping volunteers working on environmental projects.
"In think this is an unintended consequence, but it has resulted in a lot of heat," Hancock said in May of the original action. "We're trying to shed some light on it. I actually think it is not very difficult if we sit down together to do this." Hancock, a second-year assemblywoman who previously was mayor of Berkeley, CA, added, "I believe that if we can visualize it, we can describe it."
Cathryn Hilliard, executive director of the Construction Industry Force Account Council in California, says laborers and trade union representatives brought the issue to the attention of the DIR. "The original law was passed because people in the area needed work," Hilliard says, not because anyone wanted to stop volunteers from doing environmental restoration.
Intangible Values of Volunteerism
Stefan Lorenzato, statewide watershed coordinator for the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), said in mid-May that the parties to this issue had come a long way from their original positions, but he noted that the issues surrounding this debate are both complicated and philosophical. How does paying prevailing wage for restoration work affect how much it costs for restoration projects? Will paying people for this work prevent groups from doing what needs to be done? But there are other factors that contribute to the debate and make this an even more important issue, Lorenzato explained.
"Volunteerism is an underpinning of a lot of watershed-restoration work that is done at the community level," he said. "You don't get the same kind of response from the community if you pay people to do the work."
Lorenzato said that "getting the work done" is the least of the reasons for using volunteers. Educating the community, getting community buy-in, and helping young people grow up caring about the environment are all more important reasons for involving volunteers in these kinds of public works projects. Studies have shown that service learning is one of the best ways for young people to get the environmental bug while it's still possible to influence their world view, before age 15 or 16. He said states don't have the money to pay students to do this kind of learning, so their education on environmental stewardship could be short-circuited by laws like the one being enforced in California.
"That's the reason it's such a big deal for us in California. It wasn't so much that we were worried about the price tag," Lorenzato said. "We were worried about the sustainability of our long-term investment."
Volunteer labor has been seen as a key element in projects that involve Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater rule because these kinds of jobs combine environmental restoration with both public education and outreach. Across the country, volunteers help monitor water quality, plant trees, and do other watershed restoration work.
Origins of the Prevailing Wage Law
The issue of prevailing wage on public works projects dates back to the Depression, when Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act in 1931 to prevent migrant workers from undercutting local labor in the construction and building trades industries. The federal law sets standards for paying laborers and mechanics in many federally funded construction projects. The prevailing wage must be paid to workers doing any kind of construction, alteration, or repair of any public building or public works in projects where federal funds exceed $2,000. Most state statutes are modeled on the Davis-Bacon Act, but many of them exempt volunteer workers from prevailing wage requirements.
Congress also created a federal exemption called the "Community Improvement Volunteer Act of 1994," which exempts from Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements volunteers working for public entities and private nonprofit organizations, according to a pamphlet on the issue created by the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. The pamphlet is called "Negotiating the Legal Maze to Volunteer Service" and is available online at www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/resourcekit/Negotiating/prevailing.html.
To meet the federal volunteer exemption, workers must volunteer to perform their services for civic, charitable, or humanitarian purposes; serve without promise expectation, or receipt of compensation except for expenses, reasonable benefits, or a nominal fee that is not tied to productivity; provide services freely and without pressure or coercion from any employer; and offer their services solely for personal reasons or pleasure. Volunteer work many not directly or indirectly benefit any contractor performing work on the same project and the volunteer may not be employed by the contractor or subcontractor or by the public agency to perform the same kind of work for which he or she is volunteering.
According to the Interstate Labor Standards Association, 31 states have their own prevailing wage laws. According to a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, labor unions often volunteer their work for nonprofit organizations, so any environmental group that cannot afford to pay workers to complete a project always has the option to approach the union for help. In California, after 1989, such groups were required to file a form with the state before using volunteers on any public works projects, and if the work involves construction, alteration, demolition, or repair work, or work to support construction such as planning, design, or assessments.
The amendment to the California Labor Code is in part a response to a 2001 change in the law that tightened up the definition of "public funds" to include grant money and created an unintended consequence to limit volunteer work on watershed projects. The law required that all workers on public works projects involving at least $1,000 in public funds be paid the prevailing wage if even one person is paid for work on the project.
Like many other states, California gives millions of dollars a year to watershed-restoration projects and has encouraged the use of volunteers for those projects. In response to the 2001 change in the law, the state sent out letters to organizations that do environmental work to warn them of the new restrictions. The state DWR's Urban Streams Restoration Program stopped giving out grants, for example.
Vern Goehring, a environmental policy consultant lobbying in California on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups, says California has had prevailing wage laws for a long time, but this debate did not begin until after the law was changed in 2001, and really not until late 2003 when the first complaint was filed. He characterizes the 2001 change as an honest attempt to close "loopholes" that labor representatives though were being exploited. "Nobody officially representing labor said they were happy about that, that their intent was to stop volunteers," Goehring says.