Public contracts: prevailing wage requirements: violations.

Existing law generally requires that not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wages, as specified, be paid to workers employed on a public work, as defined. Existing law requires a contractor or subcontractor to submit, to the state or political subdivision on whose behalf a public work is being performed, a penalty of not more than $50 per calendar day, and not less than $10 per calendar day except in certain cases of a good faith mistake, as provided and determined by the Labor Commissioner, for violations of these prevailing wage provisions. This bill would increase that maximum penalty to $200 for each calendar day and would increase the minimum penalty except in certain cases of a good faith mistake to no less than $40 for each calendar day. The bill would also increase the penalty assessed to contractors and subcontractors with prior violations from $20 to $80, and from $30 to $120 for willful violations. Existing law requires each contractor and subcontractor performing work on a public work to keep accurate payroll records regarding his or her employees. Existing law requires that these records contain the information specified by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, and provides that a contractor or subcontractor has 10 days in which to comply after receipt of a written notice requesting the records, or is subject to forfeiting a penalty of $25 for each calendar day for each worker until strict compliance is effectuated. This bill would increase the amount of that penalty to $100 for each calendar day for each worker. Under existing law, whenever a contractor or subcontractor performing a public works project is found by the Labor Commissioner to be in violation of certain provisions of law relating to payment of prevailing wages, with intent to defraud, or in willful violation of those provisions of law, the contractor or subcontractor or a firm, corporation, partnership, or association in which the contractor or subcontractor has a substantial interest is ineligible to bid on or to receive a public works contract for specified periods of time. This bill would revise that provision to instead make a contractor or subcontractor on a public works project that is found to have committed 2 or more separate willful violations within a 3-year period ineligible for a period of up to 3 years to either bid on or be awarded a contract or perform work as a subcontractor of a public works project. The bill would also require, whenever a contractor or subcontractor performing work on a public works project has failed to provide a timely response to a request by the Division of Apprenticeship Labor Standards Enforcement, the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, or the awarding body to produce certified payroll records, the Labor Commissioner to notify the contractor or subcontractor that he or she will be subject to debarment if the certified payroll records are not produced within 30 days after receipt of the written notice, and would make the contractor or subcontractor ineligible to bid on or be awarded a contract or perform work as a subcontractor on a public works project for a period of not less than one year and no more than three years, except as specified. Existing law also requires the Labor Commissioner, not less than semiannually, to publish and distribute to awarding bodies a list of contractors who are ineligible to bid on or be awarded a public works contract, or to perform work as a subcontractor on a public works project. This bill would instead require the Labor Commissioner to publish the list described above on the commissioner's Web site, to notify the Contractors' State License Board when the list is updated, and to at least annually notify awarding bodies of the availability of the list of debarred contractors, as specified. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 1776 of the Labor Code, proposed by AB 766, to be operative only if AB 766 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2012, and this bill is chaptered last.