October 5, 2026 · LABOR AND INDUSTRY · 4,265 words · 45 speakers · 170 segments
Present.
Anderson.
Here.
Barker.
Here.
Bernstein.
Here by designation.
Cooper.
Here.
Diori.
Here.
Fink.
Gleim.
Here.
Jones.
Here by designation.
Roswell.
Present.
Reichard.
Here.
Rossi.
Here.
We have a quorum. Thank you. First, I would like to call up Senate Bill 908, printers number 1804 introduced by Senator Ferry. Ryan, please explain the bill.
Senate Bill 908 printers number 1804 amends the Prevailing Wage Act to include off-site custom fabrication and HVAC duct cleaning under the definition of public work. Additionally, it exempts rehabilitation of residential properties and school safety and security improvement projects from prevailing wage requirements.
Thank you. The question is, will the committee report the bill? Representative Glein will be offered an amendment A-03658. Andrew, please explain the amendment.
Amendment A-03658 increases the threshold for the prevailing wage from $25,000 to $250,000.
Thank you. The question is, will the committee agree to the amendment? Are there any comments or questions on amendment A-03658? I will now recognize the maker of the amendment, Representative Glein.
you may
chairman
one second so if the legislature is opening up the prevailing wage act it's imperative that we include this amendment small project threshold has not been changed in 1963 so it's at least a quarter of a century overdue representative Gleim has proposed a reasonable update to 250,000, which is supported by a broad coalition of groups, municipalities, counties, municipal authorities, and school districts. Thank you.
Representative Glaude.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This bill has been around for a lot longer than I've been in the legislature, and it actually belonged to my predecessor, Steve Bloom, before me. I think, again, if we're going to extend prevailing wage to off-site projects and fabricating, that we should compete with our neighboring states. Maryland has a $250,000 threshold. Ohio has a $250,000 threshold. Virginia has a $250,000 threshold. And Delaware has a $500,000 threshold. threshold. So again, I would make the plea that Pennsylvania come up to 2026 standards for our prevailing wage threshold, which will also allow schools to build smaller projects outside of that, like concession stands and things like that, so we don't have to get prevailing wage in there. So with that, I would ask my colleagues for an affirmative vote.
Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, I would urge members to oppose this amendment. Let me call the roll. Dawkins? No. Brennan? No by designation. Dunahue? No by designation. Girall? Goganauer? No by designation. Green? No. Haddock? No. Inglis? Kincaid? No. Krijuski? No. Mirsky. O'Mara. No by designation. Scott. Young. James. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Barger. Bernstein. Yes by designation. Cooper. Yes. Diori. Fink. Gleim. Yes. Jones. Yes by designation. Roswell?
Yes.
Reichard?
Yes.
Rossi?
Yes.
Amendment A-03658 is not agreed to. Thank you. Are there any comments or questions? I now turn to Chairman James. I think I'm going to be a microphone hog today. So I have major concerns about requiring prevailing wages to be paid for off-site custom fabrication. The definition is very broad. The bill would encompass almost any custom-manufactured item that is used in a public project. There are serious concerns about how this is going to be enforced across state lines. the Department of Labor has no jurisdiction over Ohio or New York or even Canada, for example. New York State agreed to an injunction while the law there, applying to prevailing wage and custom fabrication, is challenged in federal court. Now is not the time to push through legislation that will increase the cost of public projects for taxpayers. I ask for a no on the bill. SB 908. Thank you. Any other member like to be recognized on SB 908? Representative Kincaid.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this bill because fundamentally we are catching our laws up with how construction and other things are working. We used to have projects where everything was built on site. We no longer have that universally, and when you are able to not pay livable wages for making something off-site and then use it, that's where you end up with cutting corners and unsafe work conditions. People should be paid a living wage, and it should apply to fabricated items off-site. That feels very simple to me. Thank you.
Representative Haydick.
I'm glad our friends in the Senate sent this bill over. It's very similar to our chairman's bill. I believe you had the fabrication bill in the House, which passed bipartisan. It passed with a very good bipartisan vote, and now our friends from the Senate took it over and sent it back to us. So I'm more than glad to support this bill a second time, in essence, and I thank the chairman for his work on this bill to help get us here and get the attention of our friends in the Senate. Thank you.
Thank you, Representative Havoc. Representative Glom.
Well, this bill may sound really like a good bill to a lot of workers out there. It actually doesn't work in practice, and that's what we're seeing in New York and also in New Jersey. and I would say that we should hold off on this bill until we see how the courts rule on the bill. There's potential for enforcement challenges in determining where custom-fabricated items are created, and the bill raises potential interstate international choice of law questions based on the location of the fabrication and I concerned that other states are not going to use Pennsylvania because of this law and I urge a no vote on this bill until we can see how the courts are going to rule on it. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other member you'd like to be recognized? Well, I would like to thank the prompt sponsor for introducing this bill, and this goes to show that we can work across the aisle on big and important issues. This has been going on for now in two sessions that we've been trying to get this particular bill across the finish line. And the previous speaker had two amendments that were adopted into this bill in the Senate that previously wasn't adopted in the House version. So this goes to show you that we are willing, like I always tell folks, this is the beginning. This is not the end. But we are always willing to have conversations on the merit of these bills and try to figure out a pathway forward. I realize these bills are not perfect, especially the bipartisan bills. But this is the first time since I've been chairman that I did not get an opposition letter from the Chamber of Commerce, which I think is a step in the right direction, I guess. And I think this shows that this is bigger than a labor bill. This is actually a workers' bill, and this is about fairness. I think paying folks a fair wage is something that we all should be striving towards as Pennsylvanians. So I thank the maker again. I'm sorry he couldn't be here to speak on his bill, but I think this is a step in the right direction. I'd like to move this bill in an affirmative. So Lisa, can you call the roll?
Dawkins?
Yes.
Brennan?
Yes, by designation.
Donohue?
Yes, by designation.
Jeral?
Yes.
Goganauer?
Yes, by designation.
Green?
Yes.
Haddock?
Yes.
Ingalls?
Yes.
Kincaid?
Yes.
Kurjuski?
Yes.
Mirsky?
Yes.
O'Mara?
Yes, by designation.
Scott?
Young?
James?
No.
Anderson?
No.
Barger?
Bernstein?
No, by designation.
Cooper?
No.
Diorci?
Fink?
Gleim?
No.
Jones?
No, by designation.
Roswell?
No.
Reichard?
Reichard
Rossi
Senate Bill 908 is favorably reported as committed Thank you very much I would now like to call up Senate Bill 1260 Printer's number 1763 Introduced by Senator Robinson Ryan please explain the bill
Senate Bill 1260, printers number 1763, creates a freestanding act to require the statewide licensure of electricians, creates a board of electrical licensure, establishes a public registry of licensed electricians, and provides an appropriation.
Thank you. The question is, will the committee report the bill? Representative Barger will be offered an amendment, A-04429. Andrew, please explain the amendment.
A-04429 clarifies that licensure requirement only applies for if an individual is providing electrical services for remuneration and expands the list of exceptions from licensure in the bill by excluding minor electrical work, low voltage work, and certain electrical work performed by maintenance personnel.
Thank you. The question is, will the committee agree to the amendment? The chair now recommends, you want to go first, Chair? Representative Barker.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My concern with the bill as written is it would exclude, among other things, exclude homeowners from doing minor electrical work in their own homes. In principle, I don't think I should have to get licensed by a government body to run wire in my home, and yet this bill would require that I do so. I, as a vocation, have been in the construction and building, flipping houses, maintaining rentals. That's something my family has done for a long time. And we would often save money where we had to by running our own wire, for example. So what I mean by that is we would run a wire from a breaker box, clear out to whatever rooms that we were wiring, make sure that the wires are run up the code and an electrician would come and terminate the circuit for us. That saves a bunch of money. I don't think that we should be in the business of telling people, homeowners, how to maintain their own houses. And this bill would require that they do that. So my amendment cleans that up. It also clarifies that tradesmen who are, as part of the service that they're offering to their clients, will have to do electric work. So, for example, a well driller has to do minor electric work when they install a pressure switch, when they wire a pump head. a a plumber has to do minor electric work when they connect a hot water heater or a circulating pump right they do these things all the time and to require that those plumbers then also receive a license or bring a licensed electrician on site to finish that work i think is unreasonable i don't think there's anything wrong with with the intent of let's make sure that people are putting themselves out in the marketplace as qualified electricians are in fact qualified absolutely they should be but I don't know that a requirement like this on for example school maintenance personnel who may have to go in and diagnose a problem with a light switch or a an outlet receptacle give you another example this bill only gives exceptions for replacement of lamps and fuses. Well, no one uses fuses anymore. Very few fuses are out there. Most of them are breakers. So a homeowner can't replace a breaker now without permission from a governing body sanctioned by the state of Pennsylvania. You can't do that. In fact, under this law, and I was going to bring in a visual aid for this one, but I neglected to, I was going to bring in a spool of wire and cut it. That's illegal without a license. You can't run wire now. I don't think our homeowners, our tradesmen, our plumbers, our well diggers, our maintenance guys, our HVAC guys who may have to swap out a capacitor. Very common problem if you have an air conditioning system in your home. Capacitors go out about every five or six years. That's an easy fix. Nope, need a license. Need to get permission to do that. We know that you're competent, but you're just not competent enough until we say that you're competent enough. I think it's unreasonable, and this amendment will clean up that language. and I think allow tradesmen who are doing ancillary electric work to continue to do their jobs while also accomplishing what your folks are trying to accomplish, which is to make sure that qualified electricians are demonstrably qualified. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. I now recognize the chair. You want to go? Okay. Representative Glenn.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with my colleagues' comments on the way the policy was written. And Mr. Chairman, I really want to be a yes on this vote for you. And I would hope that we could vote yes on this amendment And I noticed that there some union guys in here right now And I want to explain to you what this bill is similar to So if you are putting in previously there was a bill about plumbing and piping And what ended up happening on a large construction project for a four-foot pipe or a five-foot pipe is then those piping guys ended up having to get a plumbing license. because of the way that the bill was written and it was wrong. And I am really worried that this bill is doing the exact same thing to electricians if we don't have this amendment. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I would really recommend to my colleagues that we vote yes to this amendment. Thank you.
Chairman James.
I too would like to be a yes on the bill. I support the concept of electrician licensing, but I cannot support the bill in its present form. The amendment, as presented by Representative Barger, resolves some very basic concerns, clarifies license requirements applied to those who provide electrical services for pay, add some very basic exceptions to ensure that we do not rope in persons who are really primarily doing their own electrical work. I would ask that the members support the Barger Amendment. It gets the bill to a place where I think more than Barbara and I can support it, I think.
Thank you. Any other member like to be recognized? All right. So for B, I'm going to oppose the and let me tell you why. As someone who is a licensed general contractor, I pride myself on actually being licensed and being insured in what I do. The issue I think we're dealing with, and I do understand if I'm a homeowner and I want to wire my own house, you are free to do that. Where you're not free to do that, if you burn your house down, you won't be held liable. So this is around a safety concern. There's no reporting agency that's going to come into your house and know that you wired a receptacle in your home. That is on you if you choose to do that. What this does say is that they're requiring you to have some type of liability on that said property and on said whatever work you're trying to perform or conduct. I know this to be true, and we all know this to be true. We all have that uncle or cousin who think they can wire a house because he watched a YouTube video on how to wire a house. doesn't mean I should hire him and be okay if he does burn my home down. This is essentially saying that if you're going to take on wiring your own home and you're not a certified electrician, be okay with the consequences that come with it if something goes wrong. This is not telling you that you can't do it. It's this forewarning you, if it goes wrong, you will be held liable. So for those reasons, I oppose this amendment, but I do appreciate the concerns. Lisey, please call the roll.
Yes. Barger?
Yes.
Bernstein?
Designation, yes.
Cooper?
Yes.
Diori?
Fink?
Gleim?
Yes.
Jones?
Designation, yes.
Roswell?
Yes.
Reichard?
Designation, yes.
Rossi?
Yes.
The amendment fails. Thank you. Are there any concerns, excuse me, comments or questions on Senate Bill 1260? I now recognize Chairman James.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the work that Senator Robinson did with many stakeholders to take some changes in the bill over in the Senate. Unfortunately, the barger amendment did not pass, and therefore I'm asking for a no vote on this bill. Thank you.
Any other member like to be recognized? Barger.
Barger. So now I wanted to be yes, I can't be yes, because I'm thinking of my well diggers, I'm thinking of plumbers, I'm thinking of HVAC guys who are now not going to be able to come and fix my air conditioner because they don't have a license, an electric license. So they'll have to go through the work of being licensed or they'll have to bring an electrician on site. So to my constituents in the 80th district, as your repair and maintenance costs for your home continue to go up, while you were complaining about affordability. Unfortunately, the majority party is making sure that those costs continue to rise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Reverend Mahavik.
You know, at Luzerne County, we just recently, right outside of my district, had a school fire. And it was a parochial school. And, of course, the concern of the parents. When you have a fire in a school, and thanks be to God, everybody got out safe. And a comment was made earlier about, oh, just have the maintenance. Now, I don't know the cause, and I'm not saying the cause was faulty work in this school fire. But a comment was made, oh, if there's a school employee, they could just do the electrical work. it made me think of those students and how those parents that had to be taken out of that school sometimes cost in the long run you know what that fire if it cost that school not only in money but in educational standards to get that school back open and the down time of those students and the fear of the family So if you're in public buildings, especially school buildings, I do believe licensed electricians should do the work. And I'm glad the Senate agrees that they sent us over this bill.
Thank you. Thank you. Rep. May Anderson.
All of us on this side wanted to support that bill. I don't know why we have these kind of arguments. The school fire is a tragedy, any fire. But when you say, I didn't know what the cause was, it doesn't apply to this bill whatsoever. It could have been a stove or an oven. We don't even know. we continue in this body to make laws based on faulty evidence. We make a statement all day long, there was a school fire, but it doesn't even apply to this. If you don't even know it's because of the wiring, there's nobody on this side that wants a school to burn down because of faulty wiring, no one. And so to insinuate that that somehow applies to this, we not arguing facts We just arguing situations that we admit don apply And I wish we could get in this body not just this committee, but in this body, arguing and debating based on what is factual and true. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Representative Young.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to ask for clarity because facts are very important. Thank you, Anderson, for bringing that up. This amendment is specifically asking for... We're on a bill now. I mean, okay, the bill is really around making sure that those people who are working on a particular property, if they were to work on, if I was to work on my own home, I have to absorb the responsibility of what that entails, knowing I'm a legislator, not an electrician. Is that correct?
That's correct. That's the fact.
So passing this piece of legislation will ensure that even if I choose to work on my home or somebody wants to employ me to work in their home, they're taking the risk because I don't have the necessary documents to follow my credentials as an electrician. Is that correct? You won't be certified. So if you're an uncertified electrician and you're working on electricity work or any type of electrical work, you would be held liable if something went wrong, or your firm or company, whoever, would be liable if they had a non-certified tech working on that piece of equipment. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other member would like to be recognized? All right, seeing none. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Representative Kaczewski.
Thank you, Chairman. I along with other members I know has received some calls about this legislation in a couple different angles and I recognize the intent of this legislation but do share some concerns about how we're making sure both workers and labor are being protected in this bill so I'm going to support the bill moving forward but I hope that we can continue to have conversations around amending some language so that all of our labor friends can be united in supporting this bill
Thank you. Representative Scott.
I'll be on the phone with my doctor this afternoon, Chairman Dawkins, for the second time today. I agree with Senate Republicans on something. So I've got to make sure something's going on either in my head or in reality. But I don't understand. People are talking about why we're debating certain things. I don't understand how we're debating safety. This is a safety issue. we've had two people in the trades are doing work that should be represented in the trades and my district have passed away this is dangerous work and we need to make sure that the people that are doing this work are qualified that they have the training to do it more importantly on the era of scams and these fly by night contractors who set up shop one day, closed the next day my constituents now have a recourse they can go on a state database to make sure this person has the training the qualifications that they need they can look online and see and more importantly if someone does shoddy work now they can be held accountable those are the issues that me, Greg Scott Democrat from Montgomery County agree with Senate Republicans about I'm glad we were able to come together over these last two years and have thoughtful conversation about how we can advance this bill forward So it's interesting that in the last 24 hours, everybody wants to come to the table. We've been working on this for a couple years, but more intimately for the last two years with this particular piece of legislation. So I'm an emphatic yes. Sure, it's not 1,000% perfect, but generally when you get the Senate Republicans in the room with the House Democrats, things aren't always going to look perfect. But this is sure as hell a step in the right direction, and I'm a yes.
Thank you. Any other member? Okay. So, again, I want to thank the prime sponsor, my cohort on the Senate side, Senator Robinson, because, again, here's an example of another bipartisan piece of legislation that we've been able to get to this point. And what I would say is that, you know, this particular bill has been talked about at left, right? We have had hearings on this particular legislation. it went through both you know chambers already had their eyes on this particular bill we have taken in amendments from both sides to kind of make adjustments up to this point and again I still know it's not perfect because when we are dealing with bipartisan pieces of legislation it is supposed to have some areas in which we still want more that makes it good legislation whenever you have and I've never had this either ABC and our union guys on the same side of a bill, that is progress. I think that's something we should look towards and say we are listening to both sides of the argument and this is a product that we received. I don't remember the exact vote total out of the Senate, but I can assure you it was high, very high for a Senate bill to come out as a bipartisan piece of legislation. My assumption is once we get it to the floor and if we do make any changes or not, my assumption is it's going to be a bipartisan piece of legislation that moves off the floor or to the governor's desk. This is in the right direction. This is not perfect, but we're moving towards having a better piece of product that we can all stand behind. But there's certain areas that I think we can figure out, and we can continue to have those conversations. So with that, I urge members to support this legislation, and let's continue to talk through some of the things we can do as it relates to getting this bill to the governor's desk. Lisey, please go to roll call.
Dawkins.
Yes.
Brennan.
Yes, by designation.
Denohue.
Yes, by designation.
Jarrell.
Yes.
Gokenauer.
Yes, by designation.
Green.
Paddock? Yes.
Ingalls? Yes.
Kincaid? Yes.
Kurjewski? Yes.
Mursky? Yes.
O'Mara? Yes by designation.
Scott? Yes.
Young? James?
No.
Anderson? No.
Barger? Bernstein?
No by designation.
Cooper? Yes.
Diorci?
Fink? No.
Gleim? No.
Jones? No by designation.
Roswell? No.
Reichard? No by designation.
Rossi? No.
The bill passes. Thank you. Senate Bill 1260 is favorably reported as committed, and seeing no other business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
Thank you.