Thursday, March 01, 2012

Fw: Follow the Law

Sent from my BlackBerry®

From: Paul McKrell <paulmckrell@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 14:50:59 -0500
To: Paul McKrell<paulmckrell@gmail.com>
Subject: Follow the Law

I'm going through old emails and just ran across correspondence to the cancelled "Mayor Ravenstahl, Follow the Law" protest on Monday.  It's important that the people of Pittsburgh concerned about this legislation are aware of the facts and not manipulated by political grandstanding.  

The Prevailing Wage Ordinance, which was passed with a 9-0 vote of City Council on February 2, 2010, requires that the first thing that must occur as per the legislation is: "The Controller shall issue prevailing wage determinations at least once every 12 months, and as frequently as necessary to reflect any increases in the prevailing wage, and shall post such determinations on the official City web site. Wage rates of employees shall be increased accordingly, and in the case of City service contracts, the contractor's billable rate under the City service contract shall be increased accordingly." 

City Controller Michael Lamb has never issued those wages and therefore there is nothing to even include in this contract two years after the legislation was passed.  Furthermore, at this time, there is no evidence of the wage determinations on Controller Lamb's website, as mandated by law:   http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/co/index.html  

The joint city/county contract for cleaning services expires in the near future.  Recently, Controller Lamb was listed as a speaker at the press conference that was scheduled for this past Monday, and subsequently cancelled, which was intended to protest the lack of any language pertaining to the Prevailing Wage Ordinance contained in a recently issued RFP for cleaning services at the City-County Building.  Inexplicably, the "Follow the Law" protest was to take place in front of the Mayor's Office.  

The fact is that over two years after the Prevailing Wage Ordinance became law it is solely the failure of City Controller Michael Lamb to perform his responsibilities under the city code that has resulted in a lack of implementation of the ordinance.  Therefore, any future "Follow the Law" protest should take place in front of the Controller's Office.

Paul

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