SAN FRANCISCO –– Ready-mix concrete delivery drivers will receive the prevailing wage of other public works employees, a federal appeals court ruled on Sept. 20.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court's ruling striking down an amendment to the California labor code that included concrete delivery drivers. The appeals court also reversed the district court's determination that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) could not intervene in the case.
Allied Concrete & Supply Company, along with seven other concrete suppliers, filed a lawsuit against the state after Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. signed AB 219. This amendment added the ready-mix concrete drivers to the state's prevailing wage law for public works employees. The concrete suppliers argued the amendment adding concrete delivery drivers singled them out from other material delivery drivers, which violated the Equal Protection Clause.
In his 30--page opinion, Judge Atsushi Wallace Tashima wrote the legislators who passed the amendment saw that ready-mix concrete delivery drivers are more important to construction projects than other material drivers due to the perishable nature of the material and the driver's duties on site.
"The conclusion that ready-mix drivers are more integral to the public works projects than other drivers because of the material's properties and the driver's tasks is rational on its face," Tashima wrote.
The goal of the prevailing wage law, he said, is to benefit the public through the efficiency of well-paid employees.
Judges Richard A. Paez and Jacqueline H. Nguyen concurred.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Case number 16-56546