Published date: 07/23/2025
Aliecia Taormina, CCEP, MCA has over 20 years of experience in construction (including a role as a Senior Compliance Manager of a Fortune 300 contractor), accumulating extensive prevailing wage and Davis-Bacon knowledge over her career
Question
Following up on your response regarding truck drivers: any material delivery driver will be involved in some form of unloading—whether it’s unstrapping, offloading, dumping, or dispensing concrete from the cab. How can we dictate to a company or delivery provider what they must pay their staff when they come onto our site, especially in remote locations where only a single vendor may be available?
Answer: While you cannot dictate what companies pay their employees, the Davis-Bacon Act and Davis-Bacon Related Acts apply to all tiers of contractors on a project when they are performing covered work. When delivery drivers perform labor or mechanic duties on-site, they are acting as a subcontractor and all DBRA requirements apply. It is also the responsibility of the contracting company to alert all lower tier contractors of these regulations when they are submitting bids (and must be included in all contractual agreements) for all work on the project.
Question
We are a roofing company installing a TPO roof for a public agency. The wage classification is listed under “Building,” and they’ve categorized it as “Carpenters – Excludes” rather than “Roofer,” which they state applies to EPDM roofs. Why are TPO and EPDM classified under two different classes? Thank you!
Answer: It has been my experience that public agencies are extremely helpful when it comes to assisting contractors. We don’t want to speculate why this agency would classify these two scopes of work so differently when they can seem very similar. Our recommendation is that you contact them directly so that they can provide you with the detailed information you’re looking for.
Question
Hi Aliecia, what’s the best way to add California wage determination (WD) classifications when they’re not included in the Davis-Bacon WD—such as Driver On/Off Haul and Apprentices? Currently, we manually add these to the federal rates in LCP with $0.00 hourly rates so we can certify our payroll, and we haven’t encountered any issues from owners so far. Is this an acceptable practice, or should we be handling it differently? I’ve heard that we can request the DOL to create the missing classification, but I haven’t looked into that yet or know where to start.
Answer: What an interesting and very common issue that we have seen in the past; I assume that you are asking about how to manage this process in LCPtracker, not necessarily how to get conformances created. this is the direction that I have been given in the past when I was a user and continue to give our users today; I have never seen or heard of any issue with this concept. However, as I am rather conservative with these sorts of issue, It is my recommendation that you reach out to your legal team to get an official stance on how your organization would prefer to proceed with these types of scenarios.
.
.
Have a burning question about labor compliance that you’ve been eager to ask? Submit it anonymously to our live submission form and you might just see it answered in a future entry of our monthly Ask the Expert series! You can also check out our past entries here.
Want an opportunity to get questions like these and other topics answered in person? Check out our events page for our educational Spark Seminars. These are perfect opportunities for you to hear from industry experts and expand your prevailing wage knowledge.
.
.
These materials are being issued with the understanding that LCPtracker is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional services and is providing these for informational purposes only. If legal, accounting, or tax expert assistance is required, the services of a competent legal, accounting or tax professional should be sought.
