Responsible Contracting Benefits Taxpayers
What is Responsible Contracting?
Responsible Contracting policies are recognized throughout the country as a way of ensuring only qualified contractors, who have a proven track record of providing quality work, are used on a construction project.
Responsible contracting policies establish a basic set of qualifications all firms must meet in order to bid on a construction project. This often includes the following:
- Receive public funding
- Require public approval
- Benefit from public investment
Responsible contracting policies require contractors to demonstrate they offer high-quality employment and work. Firms, who meet responsible contractor standards, are able to show they:
- Are fully licensed and bonded
- Have had no wage/hour violations for the past three consecutive years
- Provide OSHA 10-hour safety training
- Participate in an ERISA or joint labor-management training program (e.g. certified apprenticeship program)
- Pay prevailing wages and offer health insurance
- Provide all benefits of employment to their workforce (including Social Security, Workers’ Compensation and unemployment insurance)
- Comply with all other federal and state regulations
- Have no history of violating this policy in previous public contracts
- Moreover, strong policies require general contractors to incorporate these components into their agreements with subcontractors.
Many Responsible Contracting policies require the general contractor to incorporate these same components into agreements with all subcontractors.
Project owners are able to reject the bid of any contractor who does not meet all the criteria set forth in their policy. This helps eliminate the selection of fly-by-night contractors or contractors who have a history of performing shoddy work or repeated OSHA violations.
These policies help ensure the prudent spending of money on construction projects by allowing the project owner to fully vet a general contractor. It leads to a higher quality of construction work on a project, by requiring the use of highly skilled and highly trained tradesmen and tradeswomen, who receive Prevailing Wages.
IBEW Local 567 strongly urges all governmental entities to adopt a Responsible Contracting policy.
