332
Opinion of the Court
Travelers, we address the substance of the California statute with the presumption that ERISA did not intend to supplant it.
Like New York's surcharge requirement, the apprenticeship portion of the prevailing wage statute does not bind ERISA plans to anything. No apprenticeship program is required by California law to meet California's standards. See Southern Cal. ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 428, 841 P. 2d, at 1013. If a contractor chooses to hire apprentices for a public works project, it need not hire them from an approved program (although if it does not, it must pay these apprentices journeyman wages). So, apprenticeship programs that have not gained CAC approval may still supply public works contractors with apprentices. Unapproved apprenticeship programs also may supply apprentices to private contractors.9 The effect of § 1777.5 on ERISA apprenticeship programs, therefore, is merely to provide some measure of economic incentive to comport with the State's requirements, at least to the extent that those programs seek to provide apprentices who can work on public works projects at a lower wage.
Apprenticeship programs have confronted these differential economic incentives since well before the enactment of ERISA, and would face them today even if California had no prevailing wage statute. To supply apprentices eligible for the apprenticeship wage to federal public works contractors, an apprenticeship program must meet the standards promulgated by California under the Fitzgerald Act.10 What is
Bruch, 489 U. S. 101, 114 (1989); United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313 (1960) ("[T]he views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one").
9 In New York, we are told, "approximately half of all construction is not subject to state or federal prevailing wage requirements." Brief for State of Washington et al. as Amici Curiae 21, n. 14 (citing F. W. Dodge Division, McGraw-Hill Information Systems, Inc. (1996)).
10 It may also be that, because California's standards are "substantively similar," Southern California ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 434, 841 P. 2d, at 1017, to the federal standards, multistate apprenticeship programs are not
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007