A House committee advanced Senate Bill 908 by 14 to 12, extending prevailing wage to off-site custom fabrication for public work

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 08:56:00 -0400

The Pennsylvania House Labor and Industry Committee voted 14 to 12 on October 5, 2026, to report Senate Bill 908 to the full House without changes, according to the committee’s roll call. The bill would amend the Prevailing Wage Act so that workers who custom-fabricate goods off-site for a public project, such as ductwork, pipe assemblies or rebar cages, are paid the same prevailing rate as the crews installing them. The Senate passed the bill 37 to 13 on June 10, 2026. The full House still has to pass it and the governor has to sign it before it becomes law.

The vote split along party lines. All 14 Democrats on the committee, including Chair Jason Dawkins, who made the motion, voted yes, and all 12 Republicans voted no. Before that vote, the committee rejected an amendment from Rep. Barbara Gleim, 12 to 14, that the committee’s record describes as raising the prevailing wage threshold from $25,000 to $250,000. The bill page lists it as given first consideration and laid on the table the same day.

For the background on who the act covers and what it requires today, see how Pennsylvania’s Prevailing Wage Act applies to public construction jobs.

Recorded votes on Senate Bill 908 and the amendments offered to it
Date	Body	Motion	Yes	No	Result
2026-06-10	Senate	Table an amendment raising the threshold to $2.5 million	34	16	Tabled
2026-06-10	Senate	Table an amendment striking the custom fabrication provisions	36	14	Tabled
2026-06-10	Senate	Table an amendment limiting the changes to cities of the first class	39	11	Tabled
2026-06-10	Senate	Final passage	37	13	Passed
2026-10-05	House Labor and Industry Committee	Amend to raise the threshold from $25,000 to $250,000	12	14	Failed
2026-10-05	House Labor and Industry Committee	Report the bill as committed	14	12	Passed

Source: palegis.us

What the bill changes

The act now covers construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration and repair work, other than maintenance, paid for in whole or in part with a public body’s money when the project’s estimated total cost is over $25,000. Its definition of a covered worker leaves out material suppliers and their employees who do not perform services at the job site. Senate Bill 908, in the version the Senate passed (Printer’s No. 1804), changes both definitions.

The bill adds custom fabrication to covered work and defines it as nonstandard goods or materials fabricated or assembled off-site and produced specifically for a public work project. It names plumbing and pipe-fitting, HVAC and refrigeration, sheet metal and duct, boiler, electrical, welding, mechanical insulation, ornamental iron, rebar assembly and sign work, along with prefabricated modules built to a project’s specifications. Structural steel members and precast concrete are excluded.
Workers who custom-fabricate for the project, on or off the site, would count as covered workers. A supplier’s employees would stay outside the act unless their work is custom fabrication.
The definition of public work would name HVAC duct cleaning as an exception to the maintenance exclusion.
The rate for custom fabrication would be the prevailing rate for the craft in the locality where the public project is located, the same rate paid for that trade on site.
A firm that contracts or subcontracts to custom-fabricate for a public work would face the same compliance and reporting requirements, penalties and enforcement as any other contractor or subcontractor, and the bid specifications would have to state the minimum rate for fabrication workers.
Section 5 would add that workers must be paid the rate for their craft and may not be paid multiple rates on the same project.

The Senate also added two exclusions in June. Rehabilitation of a residential property with fewer than eight units would fall outside the act, though the bill keeps residential municipal housing authority property in a city of the first class, Philadelphia, inside it. School safety and security improvements would also fall outside the act; the bill ties them to the school safety sections of the Public School Code and caps them at a total project cost of $50,000. The $25,000 project threshold stays where it is. The changes would take effect 60 days after the bill becomes law.

The Prevailing Wage Act today and as amended by Senate Bill 908, Printer's No. 1804
Provision	Current law	Senate Bill 908 as passed by the Senate
Work covered	Construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration and repair other than maintenance	Adds custom fabrication, and makes HVAC duct cleaning an exception to the maintenance exclusion
Off-site workers	Material suppliers who do not perform services at the job site are left out	Workers who custom-fabricate nonstandard goods or materials for the project are covered
Custom fabrication	Not defined	Nonstandard goods made off-site specifically for a public work project, such as duct, pipe, electrical, boiler, rebar and sign work; structural steel members and precast concrete are left out
Rate for custom fabrication	Not addressed	The prevailing rate for the craft in the locality where the project is located
Rates per worker	Not less than the prevailing minimum wage	The rate for the worker's craft; a worker may not be paid multiple rates on the same project
Exclusions	Work under a rehabilitation or manpower training program	Adds rehabilitation of residential property with fewer than eight units, and school safety and security improvements up to $50,000
Project threshold	Over $25,000	Over $25,000, unchanged
Effective date	Not applicable	60 days after enactment

Source: palegis.us

Amendments the Senate set aside

On June 10, before final passage, the Senate voted to table three Republican amendments, which set them aside without adopting them. Sen. Scott Martin offered one that would have raised the $25,000 threshold to $2.5 million, tabled 34 to 16, and another that would have struck the custom fabrication provisions, tabled 36 to 14. Sen. Dawn Keefer offered one that would have applied the bill’s changes only to cities of the first class, tabled 39 to 11.

The bill page lists other bills in this session that amend the same act, among them House Bill 846 from Rep. Dawkins, whose co-sponsorship memo is titled “Prohibiting Split Rates & Providing for Custom Fabrication on Public Works Projects.”

Dollar lines in the Prevailing Wage Act, Labor and Industry's highway rule and the amendments offered to Senate Bill 908
Dollar line	Amount	Status
Prevailing wage threshold for public work	$25,000	Current law
School safety and security exclusion cap in SB 908	$50,000	In the Senate-passed bill
Threshold for locally funded highway and bridge projects	$100,000	Current law for contracts after January 1 2014
Threshold in the House committee amendment	$250,000	Failed 12-14 on October 5 2026
Threshold in the Senate amendment	$2,500,000	Tabled 34-16 on June 10 2026

Source: pa.gov

What this means if you bid or supply public work

Public owners around Conshohocken, including the boroughs, the townships, Montgomery County and the school districts, put prevailing wage rates in their bid specifications for projects over $25,000. The Secretary of Labor and Industry sets those rates by locality, which the act defines by the county where the work is performed.

If your shop builds duct, pipe spools, electrical assemblies, rebar cages or signs for public jobs, the hours your shop crew spends on that work would carry the project’s prevailing rate and the same records and reporting as field labor. Because the rate follows the project’s location, a shop here building ductwork for a school in another county would pay that county’s rate for that work, and a shop elsewhere building for a Montgomery County project would pay the rates set for this area. Before you quote fabrication on a public job that may run past the bill’s effective date, ask the general contractor or the public owner which rate determination will apply to shop work.

The bill’s Section 5 says a worker may not be paid multiple rates on the same project. If you now split a worker’s hours between classifications on one job, ask how that language would apply before you price work that could run past the effective date. The Bureau of Labor Law Compliance answers project questions at 1-800-932-0665. For a decision about how the bill would apply to your payroll or a contract you have signed, ask the bureau or a labor lawyer. For where local public bids are posted, see where public construction bids are posted for Conshohocken-area work.

Caveats

The House can still change the bill’s text on the floor. If the House amends it, the Senate has to agree to the changes before it goes to the governor. The bill page lists it in the 2025-2026 regular session, and a bill that has not been enacted when a session ends has to be introduced again in the next one.

The committee’s vote record identifies the bill by its earlier printer’s number, 1033, while the bill page lists Printer’s No. 1804, the Senate-passed text, as current. This article describes Printer’s No. 1804.

The act does not apply to public works covered by the federal Davis-Bacon Act, so a federally funded project may follow federal rates instead. Whether a particular job is covered turns on its funding, its cost and the work involved, and the Bureau of Labor Law Compliance answers questions about a particular project.

The General Assembly’s pages were checked on October 6, 2026. Open the bill page for its current status.

Rules | Conshy Contracting

A House committee advanced Senate Bill 908 by 14 to 12, extending prevailing wage to off-site custom fabrication for public work

What the bill changes

Amendments the Senate set aside

What this means if you bid or supply public work

Caveats