California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc., 519 U.S. 316, 15 (1997)

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330

CALIFORNIA DIV. OF LABOR STANDARDS ENFORCEMENT v. DILLINGHAM CONSTR., N. A., INC.

Opinion of the Court

We think that, in every relevant respect, California's prevailing wage statute is indistinguishable from New York's surcharge program. At the outset, we note that apprenticeship standards and the wages paid on state public works have long been regulated by the States. As discussed in Part I-A, supra, California has required that prevailing wages be paid on its public works projects for nearly as long as Congress has required them to be paid on federal projects, and for more than 40 years prior to the enactment of ERISA. Similarly, California has legislated in the apprenticeship area for the better part of this century. See, e. g., The Shelley-Maloney Apprentice Labor Standards Act, 1939 Cal. Stat. 220, codified at Cal. Lab. Code § 3070 et seq. Congress, in the Fitzgerald Act, recognized pre-existing state efforts in regulating apprenticeship programs and apparently expected that those efforts would continue. See 29 U. S. C. § 50 (directing the Secretary of Labor "to cooperate with State agencies engaged in the formulation and promotion of standards of apprenticeship"); see also H. R. Rep. No. 945, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1937).

That the States traditionally regulated these areas would not alone immunize their efforts; ERISA certainly contemplated the pre-emption of substantial areas of traditional state regulation. The wages to be paid on public works projects and the substantive standards to be applied to apprenticeship training programs are, however, quite remote from the areas with which ERISA is expressly concerned— " 'reporting, disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, and the like.' " Travelers, supra, at 661 (quoting Shaw, 463 U. S., at 98). A reading of § 514(a) resulting in the pre-emption of traditionally state-regulated substantive law in those areas where ERISA has nothing to say would be "unsettling," Travelers,

unlikely that the Congress that enacted ERISA would later have sought to encourage a state program that ERISA would pre-empt.

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