- The contract wage is a collectively bargained minimum wage. Contractors can pay over scale if they decide to. Not all members are paid overscale and overscale payments tend to rise in frequency and amount during booming economies when contractors are scrambling for a workforce.
- The current economy in Washington state is excellent. Not knowing what the future holds, we need to be able to bargain for good times and bad. We, as well as other trades, gave back wages in the past. We would prefer not to give back wages.
- Large contractors can sometimes afford over-scale pay when many smaller contractors with tighter margins cannot. We bargain these agreements with all 600 contractors in this agreement.