328
Opinion of the Court
Section 1777.5, then, "functions irrespective of . . . the existence of an ERISA plan." Ingersoll-Rand Co., 498 U. S., at 139. An apprenticeship program meeting the substantive standards set forth in the Fitzgerald Act regulations can be approved whether or not its funding apparatus is of a kind as to bring it under ERISA. See Southern Cal. ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 429, n. 1, 841 P. 2d, at 1014, n. 1. Section 1777.5 is indifferent to the funding, and attendant ERISA coverage, of apprenticeship programs. Accordingly, California's prevailing wage statute does not make reference to ERISA plans. We turn now to the question whether it nonetheless has a "connection with" such plans.
B
In Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., we held that the New York Human Rights Law, which prohibited "employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner that discriminates on the basis of pregnancy," and New York's Disability Benefits Law, which required "employers to pay employees specific benefits," "relate[d] to" ERISA plans. 463 U. S., at 97. Shaw and other of our ERISA pre-emption decisions, see, e. g., FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52 (1990); Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504 (1981), presented us with state statutes that "mandated employee benefit structures or their administration"; in those cases, we concluded that these requirements amounted to "connection[s] with" ERISA plans. See Travelers, 514 U. S., at 658.
The state law at issue in Travelers, our most recent exercise in ERISA pre-emption, stands in considerable contrast. That statute regulated hospital rates, and required hospitals to exact surcharges (ranging from 9% to 24% of the rate set under the statute) from patients whose hospital bills were paid by any of a variety of non-Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers. Because ERISA plans, as might be expected, were predominant among the purchasers of insurance, see Brief
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