On June 10, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act making general contractors (or trade contractors that themselves have subcontractors) liable for the wages of their subcontractors' employees. The new law is commonly referred to as the "wage protection act." Various labor-related groups lobbied for the change in Illinois law. The law is codified at 820 ILCS 115/13.5.
Interestingly, if a contractor for a project is itself signatory "to a collective bargaining agreement on the project where the work is being performed," that contractor is exempt from the new law. 820 ILCS 115/13.5(h). Put another way, the law as written does not apply to union signatory contractors. The law does not define what it means to have a collective bargaining agreement "on the project," but seemingly as long as a contractor is a signatory to a construction trade union with jurisdiction over the project, the contractor would be exempt from the law. Potentially even if a construction manager is a signatory with any union, that contractor may be able to avoid the law.
The law materially increases the risk of construction in Illinois for construction managers, general contractors, and trade contractors that are not union or not signatory with a union "on the project where the work is performed." Such non-union contractors run the risk that if a subcontractor of any tier (i.e., a subcontractor's subcontractor) fails to pay its employees' wages...
Russia's Defense Ministry is reporting alleged battlefield successes on Max, but some of its claims lack evidence. Even Russian military bloggers are questioning claims that Ukrainian forces have ...