California Slurry Seal Ass'n v. Department of Industrial Relations

At the request of a labor organization, the Department of Industrial Relations (the Department) evaluated whether to rescind a 10-year-old prevailing wage determination for slurry seal workers. The Department rescinded the determination upon concluding it no longer represented the prevailing wage. When the Department did so, another preexisting prevailing wage determination, based on a collective bargaining agreement and previously applicable to only a small segment of the industry, became the prevailing wage determination applicable to all Southern California slurry seal workers.

An association of slurry seal contractors filed a petition for a writ of mandate to challenge the rescission. It claimed the Department abused its discretion in rescinding one prevailing wage determination when the net effect was to supplant it with a second prevailing wage determination which did not in fact represent the prevailing wage. The trial court denied the writ petition, holding the Department had not abused its discretion and the association had failed to exhaust its administrative remedies.

The association appeals, reiterating that the Department abused its discretion, and…