An editorial from The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register
WHEELING, W.Va. — If you are among those still condemning West Virginia legislators who repealed the antiquated prevailing wage law earlier this year, the news this week was not good.
Critics of the action insisted it would cost the jobs of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Mountain State construction workers. Paychecks they should have been collecting would go to employees of out-of-state companies descending on West Virginia to outbid in-state firms for public works projects, the naysayers insisted.
On the books for decades, prevailing wage laws required that public bodies such as city councils, county commissions and boards of education require that contractors on their construction projects pay employees wages set by the state, or better…
