Am I entitled to prevailing wages?

Hi, I’m Innessa Huot, and I’m an employment attorney.

Prevailing wages are wages that are paid to laborers and tradesmen on public works projects. Now, these are government contracts where the companies get funding from the government. And these prevailing wages, they’re substantially higher than the minimum wages, and they’re specifically codified in the regulations. Each tradesman is supposed to get paid their specific prevailing wage based on their trade and their level of experience. So what we see that usually happens is that companies will attest that they’re paying their workers these very high prevailing wages, and then they’ll get funding from the government, which incorporates these wages. But then they’ll pay their workers some lower amounts, and then they’ll just pocket the difference.

If you think that you’ve been working on a public works’ project, and you suspect that you have not been paid the prevailing wage, then it’s really important that you speak with an experienced attorney. We deal with these kinds of claims every day, so please give us a call and we’d be happy to go over this with you in detail. Thank you so much for watching.