Busker

Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J.

California’s prevailing wage law (Lab. Code, 1 § 1720 et seq.) is a minimum wage provision that generally applies to those employed on “public works.” This case involves two questions: (1) Does publicly funded work on rolling stock, like train cars, fall under the statutory definition of “public works”? (2) Alternatively, does the work on rolling stock in this case qualify as “public work” because it is integral to other activity that itself qualifies as public work? The answer to both questions is no.

I. BACKGROUND

The Southern California Regional Rail Authority operates a large train system known as Metrolink. In 2010, it entered into the prime contract with Parsons Transportation Group, Inc. (Parsons) to design, furnish, and install a comprehensive communications network called Positive Train Control (PTC) to prevent collisions and other dangerous train movement. The project was publicly funded and cost over $216 million. The expansive undertaking included wayside signals, systems on locomotives and rail cars, back office servers, a communications network, and a centralized dispatching system, along with software development and…