Cite as: 519 U. S. 316 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 140 (1990). Where a State's law acts immediately and exclusively upon ERISA plans, as in Mackey, or where the existence of ERISA plans is essential to the law's operation, as in Greater Washington Bd. of Trade and Ingersoll-Rand, that "reference" will result in pre-emption.
A law that does not refer to ERISA plans may yet be pre-empted if it has a "connection with" ERISA plans. Two Terms ago, we recognized that an "uncritical literalism" in applying this standard offered scant utility in determining Congress' intent as to the extent of § 514(a)'s reach. Travelers, 514 U. S., at 656. Rather, to determine whether a state law has the forbidden connection, we look both to "the objectives of the ERISA statute as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive," ibid., as well as to the nature of the effect of the state law on ERISA plans, id., at 658-659.
As is always the case in our pre-emption jurisprudence, where "federal law is said to bar state action in fields of traditional state regulation, . . . we have worked on the 'assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.' " Id., at 655 (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947)) (citation omitted).
A
Respondents and several of their amici urge us to conclude that § 1777.5 makes "reference to" ERISA plans. Because it seems that approved apprenticeship programs need not necessarily be ERISA plans, we decline to do so.
On its face, § 1777.5 appears to allow the lower apprentice wage only to a contractor who acquires apprentices through a "joint apprenticeship committee"—an apprenticeship program sponsored by the collective efforts of management and organized labor. See Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §§ 3075, 3076 (West 1989). Were this the true extent of the prevailing
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