When off-site employees specially produce fabrication or prefabricated products for use in a public works project, should they be paid prevailing wages? In California, the answer is yes.
In a letter Opinion dated March 4, 2003, the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations decided that workers, employed by a certain heating and air conditioning sheet metal contractor (who was performing certain off-site fabrication work in conjunction with the construction work) was deemed to be employed on a public works project. That meant that the employees working on that off-site fabrication shop would have to be paid prevailing wages.