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Labor Code §1720(a)(1) makes public funding the test: prevailing wage attaches to work done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of public funds. A privately owned strip mall paid for entirely with private money is not a public work, so the §1771 threshold never comes into play. The $1,000 figure only marks where prevailing wage begins on work that is already public, and it does not convert a private job. No statute imposes prevailing wage on all California construction. A building permit is a code-enforcement act and spends no public money on the project.

Under Labor Code §1773, the Director of Industrial Relations determines per-craft, per-county prevailing wage rates and publishes general determinations on a semi-annual schedule (typically February 22 and August 22 each year), with special determinations as needed.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(3) requires each contractor and subcontractor on a monitored project to furnish the §1776 records directly to the Labor Commissioner, in an electronic format in the manner prescribed on the department's website, at least once every 30 days while work continues and once more within 30 days of the last day worked. Certified mail reaches the right office in the wrong form. Paper to the awarding body is the common error: the awarding body still receives records on request under §1776(b), but that does not satisfy the §1771.4 duty. Fax is not a prescribed format at all.

Labor Code §1726 and §1727 make the awarding body withhold from progress or final payments the wages, penalties and forfeitures the Labor Commissioner has assessed, and hold them until the assessment is resolved, so the money stays available to the underpaid workers. Cancelling the contract is a remedy for breach and is governed by the contract's own default and notice provisions, not by a wage audit. Prevailing wage enforcement is civil, so a criminal referral is not the ordinary route. And the awarding body is not a bystander: withholding is its own statutory duty once it is notified.

Labor Code §1735 forbids discrimination on public works on the basis of race, religious creed, colour, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, medical condition, marital status, sex, age or sexual orientation, and imposes a forfeiture for each offence on top of any other remedy the worker may have. Private hiring discretion is no defence, because the contractor took public money. Training is a settlement term a party may agree to, not the statutory consequence. And retention release is governed by Public Contract Code §7107, which has nothing to do with discrimination.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(2) requires the awarding body, or the prime contractor at its direction, to post job-site notices as prescribed by regulation, and 8 CCR §16451(d) sets out the DIR notice covering the prevailing wage requirement, the duty to keep certified payroll, and where a worker can complain. Cal/OSHA posters are separately required and do not discharge this duty. A licence number belongs on the contractor's vehicles and contracts under B&P §7030.5, not on this notice. The requirement is current, not repealed, and is one of the conditions of DIR monitoring.

Civil Code §9550 requires the direct contractor on a public works contract over $25,000 to give a payment bond before starting, and it exists for exactly this claimant: a supplier who dealt with a subcontractor and cannot lien public property. The claim must be made and suit filed within the §9558 window, which closes six months after the stop-notice period ends. A lien on the school or city building (a) is void. The supplier has no contract with the awarding body, so a direct breach claim (b) fails for want of privity. And waiting for retention (c) is the trap: retention released under Public Contract Code §7107 goes to the prime contractor, not to a supplier two tiers down, so the wait runs the §9558 clock out on the only remedy that would have worked.

The §1777.5 ratio requires at least 1 hour of apprentice work for every 5 hours of journeyman work. With 200 journeyman hours, the contractor must employ apprentices for at least 200 ÷ 5 = 40 hours, drawing from a state-approved apprenticeship program.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(3) makes each contractor and subcontractor on a monitored project furnish the §1776 records directly to the Labor Commissioner, electronically, in the manner prescribed on the department's website, at least every 30 days while work continues. Sending them only to the awarding body is the common error: that body still receives records on request under §1776(b), but that does not discharge the §1771.4 duty. The county recorder takes recorded notices, never payroll. Building officials check code compliance, not wages.

Under Labor Code §1777.5 and 8 CCR §230(a), the contractor gives written notice of the contract award on a DAS-140 to the apprenticeship committee of each craft in the area of the site, within 10 days of the award and before work starts. The DAS-1 is the apprentice's own registration agreement, not a contract-award notice. The PWC-100 is the awarding body's filing with the DIR under §1773.3, not the contractor's. There is no CSLB form in this chain at all; apprenticeship is administered by the Division of Apprenticeship Standards.

8 CCR §230.1(a) requires the contractor to request dispatch of apprentices from the applicable committee on a DAS-142 at least 72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, before apprentices are needed on the job; a committee that then fails to dispatch leaves the contractor covered by its documented request. No statute imposes a double journeyman wage for an unfilled slot. Waivers under §1777.5 come from the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, not the CSLB Registrar. And paying anyone the apprentice rate who is not a registered apprentice is itself a prevailing wage violation.

Labor Code §1771.4(a)(4) fixes the period at three years after completion of the work, and §1174(d) requires payroll records generally to be kept at least three years, so the two rules agree. The shorter periods would let records disappear while an assessment or a §1741 review is still live. Tying retention of the records to release of the retention money confuses two different things that share a word: retention proceeds are governed by Public Contract Code §7107 and are usually released within 60 days of completion, long before the record-keeping duty ends.

Labor Code §1771.5(a) lets an awarding body skip prevailing wage only if the Director has approved it to run a labor compliance program, and then only on construction of $25,000 or less, or alteration, demolition, repair or maintenance of $15,000 or less. The $1,000 line is §1771's general floor: below it no prevailing wage is owed at all, so it is not an exemption the agency elects. The $50,000 and $100,000 figures appear nowhere in the statute, and small-business status waives nothing.

Labor Code §1771 establishes the baseline rule that prevailing wages must be paid on all public works projects of more than $1,000. The higher $25,000/$15,000 thresholds in option D apply only to awarding bodies that have adopted an approved labor compliance program under §1771.5; without such a program, the $1,000 default of §1771 applies. The $500 and $5,000 figures are not statutory thresholds. This $1,000 floor is one of the most heavily tested numbers on the Business & Law exam.

Labor Code §1775(a) lets the Labor Commissioner assess up to $200 for each worker for each calendar day of underpayment, on top of the wage difference owed to the worker, with the amount set by the gravity of the offence and the contractor's history. A percentage of the contract price is not in §1775 and would make the penalty independent of how many workers were shortchanged. Treble damages belong to other wage statutes, not to this one. The $50 rate with a $5,000 project cap borrows the shape of the §1771.4 records penalty and applies it to the wrong violation.

Public Contract Code §7107(c) requires the public entity to release retention within 60 days after the date of completion, and §7107(f) charges 2 percent per month on any amount improperly withheld, in lieu of other interest, plus attorney's fees to the prevailing party in a collection action. The 90- and 120-day answers exceed the statutory window, and the penalty for delay is not optional. The 30-day figure borrows from progress-payment timing; §7107(d) does give the prime seven days to pass the retention down to its subs, which is a different clock.

Public Contract Code §4104(a)(1) requires the prime to set out in its bid the name, place of business, California licence number, DIR registration number and portion of work of each subcontractor whose work exceeds one-half of 1 percent of the prime's total bid. Street and highway work has its own variant — one-half of 1 percent or $10,000, whichever is greater — which is where the $10,000 in another option comes from, but the percentage there is still one-half of 1 percent, not 5 percent. The $25,000 and 10 percent figures are not in the statute; listing wrongly can cost the contract under §4110.

Public Contract Code §4107(a) permits substitution only on a listed ground — the sub refuses to execute the subcontract, becomes insolvent, fails to perform, is not properly licensed, and so on — and only after the awarding body gives the listed subcontractor written notice and at least five working days to object and request a hearing. A lower price from a replacement is bid shopping, which the Act exists to stop, and notice alone does not authorise it. The listed sub's agreement is not required when a ground exists, and a payment for stepping aside is not one of the grounds. Signing day changes nothing: listing binds from bid opening.

Labor Code §1777.5(g) and 8 CCR §230.1 require at least one hour of apprentice work for every five hours of journeyman work in the craft, computed over the duration of the project rather than shift by shift, unless the approved standard for that craft sets a different ratio. One-for-one on every shift both inflates the ratio and applies the wrong measuring period. Two apprentices per journeyman inverts the relationship entirely. And the ratio is not the prime's to choose: missing it without a documented DAS-142 dispatch request draws §1777.7 penalties and possible debarment.

Labor Code §1773.1(a) defines per diem wages as the basic hourly rate plus employer payments for health and welfare, pension, vacation and holiday, apprenticeship or other training, worker protection and assistance programs, and industry advancement and collective bargaining administration — each as set in the Director's determination for that craft and county. Cash-only fails because the fringe components are part of the required total, not a bonus. There is no flat percentage: the fringe amount comes from the determination, not from arithmetic. And H-2A is a federal farm-labour program with nothing to do with construction public works.

Public Contract Code §2500 lets an awarding body use a project labor agreement so long as the agreement takes bids from union and non-union contractors alike, recognises the workers' right to choose representation, bars strikes and lockouts, sets a dispute procedure, and binds every contractor and subcontractor on the project. A PLA is therefore neither prohibited nor limited to federal work. Nor is it compulsory at any dollar figure: the choice belongs to the awarding body. Section 2503 goes the other way, conditioning state construction funding for charter cities that forbid project labor agreements.

Under Labor Code §1771 and §1720, prevailing wages must be paid on public works projects over $1,000. (A narrow exception allows a $15,000/$25,000 threshold only for certain projects when a local agency has an approved labor compliance program.) The general trigger is the $1,000 threshold.

Labor Code §1770 and §1773 charge the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations with determining the general prevailing rate of per diem wages for each craft and locality. The U.S. Department of Labor sets Davis-Bacon rates, but those govern federally funded contracts, not California public works. The awarding body files the project notice and withholds for violations; it has no power to set the rate by resolution. Union dispatch rates are data the Director may weigh, not the determination itself.

Labor Code §1725.5 requires a contractor or subcontractor to register with the DIR, and pay the annual fee, before it may bid on, be listed on a bid for, or perform public work subject to prevailing wage. The CSLB issues the licence but runs no public works registration or certification, so that option names an agency that has no such programme. A bond of twice the contract amount is not a bidding prerequisite; bonding comes from the call for bids and Civil Code §9550. The Division of Apprenticeship Standards approves apprenticeship programmes, not contractors.

Labor Code §1776(a) requires records showing, for each individual worker, the name, address, social security number, work classification, straight-time and overtime hours worked each day and week, and the actual per diem wages paid, verified under penalty of perjury. Crew or trade totals fail because the record is per worker per day, not per crew. Contract price, change orders and retention are accounting for the contract, not payroll for the workers. The awarding body's payment dates belong to the progress-payment record, not to the certified payroll.

Labor Code §1777.5 requires the contractor to request dispatch from an approved apprenticeship programme, employ apprentices at the required ratio, and make training fund contributions. Davis-Bacon apprentice rules apply to federally funded work; California public works run on §1777.5. The CSLB issues no apprenticeship endorsement, so there is nothing to obtain. One apprentice per journeyman per shift overstates the duty twice over: 8 CCR §230.1 sets one hour of apprentice work for every five journeyman hours, and measures it over the whole project rather than shift by shift.

Labor Code §1741 authorises the Labor Commissioner, who heads the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement inside the DIR, to issue a civil wage and penalty assessment after investigating a prevailing wage violation. The Division of Apprenticeship Standards polices the §1777.5 apprenticeship duties, a separate programme with its own penalties. The CSLB disciplines licences and may act on a §7110 referral, but it does not assess wages or §1775 penalties. The Attorney General may litigate on the state's behalf but issues no assessment.

Public property cannot be sold to satisfy a private claim, so no mechanics lien attaches to it. The substitutes are the direct contractor's payment bond under Civil Code §9550 and the stop payment notice against undisbursed public funds under Civil Code §9352. A notice of non-responsibility is a private-works device by which an owner disclaims work ordered by a tenant; it protects the owner and pays nobody. Builder's risk insures the work against physical loss and answers no invoice.

The federal Miller Act and the state Little Miller Acts, including Civil Code §9550, require the prime contractor to furnish a payment bond protecting subcontractors and suppliers and, on most projects, a performance bond protecting the public agency. Builder's risk covers physical damage to the work and answers no payment claim. A lien waiver runs from the claimant to the owner; it is not something the public agency issues. The bid bond does its work at award and is discharged once the contract and the required bonds are executed.

Public agencies typically must award to the lowest responsible, responsive bidder. 'Responsive' means the bid conforms to the solicitation; 'responsible' means the bidder is qualified and capable. This process promotes fairness and stewardship of public funds.

Labor Code §1775(a) makes the contractor pay the difference between what was paid and the prevailing rate, and adds a civil penalty of up to $200 for each worker for each calendar day of underpayment. Nothing in the statute offers a first-offense warning. Licence revocation is a CSLB proceeding under B&P §7110 that may follow, but it is neither automatic nor what §1775 imposes. Forfeiting the contract price is not a prevailing wage remedy; under §1726 the awarding body withholds only the assessed amounts.

Labor Code §1720(a)(1) defines public works as construction, alteration, demolition, installation or repair work done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of public funds. The $1,000 figure in §1771 is the threshold above which prevailing wages are owed, not the definition of public works. Public ownership of the land is not the test either: a privately funded project on public land can fall outside it, while a privately owned project built with a public subsidy can fall inside. Work a public agency performs with its own forces is expressly outside §1771.

Labor Code §1776(b) makes certified payroll available for inspection and furnishes certified copies on request to the employee, to a representative of the body awarding the contract, and to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which the Labor Commissioner heads inside the DIR. Designers and inspectors administer the work, not the payroll. The public may request records, but §1776(e) requires the worker's name, address and social security number to be obliterated first, so unredacted public access is wrong. The county recorder takes recorded notices; payroll is never filed there.

Labor Code §1725.5 requires every contractor and subcontractor on covered public work to be registered before it is listed on a bid, awarded work, or allowed to perform, and §1725.5(e) makes an unregistered listing grounds to treat the bid as nonresponsive. The prime-only reading ignores that the statute names subcontractors expressly. Registering later does not cure the defect, because the duty attaches at bid listing. Registration is the contractor's own filing with the DIR; no awarding body registers a firm on its behalf.

Labor Code §1773.1(a) defines per diem wages as the basic hourly rate plus employer payments for health and welfare, pension, vacation and holiday, apprenticeship or other training, worker protection committees, and industry advancement funds. There is no flat percentage: the fringe amounts come from the Director's determination for that craft and county. Travel and subsistence are a separate §1773.8 obligation and do not stand in for the fringe package. Overhead is the contractor's own money and is never credited against what the worker is owed.

A bid bond guarantees only that the successful bidder will execute the contract and post the payment and performance bonds the call for bids requires; if it walks away, the surety covers the agency's cost of going to the next bidder. Freedom from defects is what a maintenance or warranty bond promises. Prevailing wage payment is backed by the payment bond and by §1726 withholding, not by the bid bond. DIR registration of listed subs is verified from the bid itself, and no bond guarantees it.

Labor Code §1777.7 sets a civil penalty of up to $100 for each full calendar day of noncompliance, rising to $300 a day for a knowing second violation within three years, and §1777.1(d)(1) lets the Labor Commissioner deny the right to bid on or perform public work for up to one year, or up to three for a repeat. DIR registration is a separate duty and is not forfeited for an apprenticeship breach. No statute raises the contract price to pay for a compliance failure. The CSLB may discipline a licence after a referral, but nothing about that is automatic.

Labor Code §1777.1 makes a debarred contractor, and firms in which it holds an interest, ineligible to bid on, be awarded, or perform as a subcontractor on a public works project for a fixed term, generally one to three years. The licence itself is untouched: a debarred contractor may keep working private jobs, which is why the CSLB option is wrong. Debarment runs for a stated period and then ends, so permanent removal overstates it. No statute doubles the wage rate as a penalty; §1775 adds a per-worker, per-day penalty instead.

Labor Code §1742(a) gives a contractor served with a civil wage and penalty assessment 60 days to file a written request for review, which is heard inside the DIR before any court sees it. The CSLB has no jurisdiction over a prevailing wage assessment. Going straight to superior court fails because the administrative remedy must be exhausted first; §1742(c) provides for review of the hearing decision by writ. Paying under protest and suing the awarding body targets the wrong party, since the assessment is the Labor Commissioner's.

A bid that misses a material requirement of the solicitation is nonresponsive and may be rejected however low it is; failing to acknowledge an addendum and omitting the subcontractor listing required by Public Contract Code §4104 are both material. An alternate bid is a priced option the agency itself invited, not a defective base bid. Calling it the lowest responsible bid confuses responsibility, which is about the bidder's capacity, with responsiveness, which is about the bid document. An agency may waive only an immaterial irregularity, and an omitted sub list is not one.

The Subletting and Subcontracting Fair Practices Act makes the prime name, in its bid, every subcontractor whose work exceeds one-half of one percent of the total bid, so the prime cannot shop those prices down after award or let rivals peddle lower ones in. Prevailing wage duties come from Labor Code §1771 and apply whether or not a sub is listed. Self-performance is not restricted by the Act; listing is required only for work actually subcontracted. Licensing is policed by the CSLB and by §4104's licence-number requirement, which is a detail of listing rather than its purpose.

Labor Code §1771 excepts only public works of $1,000 or less, so a $50,000 city sidewalk job carries the full prevailing wage obligation for every covered worker, at the rates the DIR Director has determined for that craft and county. Repair is named in the definition of public works, so it earns no minimum-wage treatment. Apprentices are paid their own prevailing rate, but so is every journeyman. The $25,000 figure is real but belongs elsewhere: §1771.5(a) lets an awarding body with an approved labor compliance programme skip prevailing wage on construction of $25,000 or less, and $15,000 or less for alteration, demolition, repair or maintenance.

Labor Code §1776(h) gives the contractor 10 days after a written request and then forfeits $100 for each calendar day, or part of one, for each worker, until strict compliance; those penalties are withheld from progress payments at the Division's request. Withholding is limited to the penalty amount, so the whole progress payment is not lost. Nothing about a records failure extends the completion date. The CSLB is not the assessing body here, and it is not the only one that can act: on a DIR-monitored job §1771.4(a)(3)(B) adds its own $100-a-day penalty, capped at $5,000 for the project.

On a federally funded construction contract above the statutory threshold, the Davis-Bacon Act requires the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits determined by the U.S. Department of Labor. California's Labor Code prevailing wage scheme attaches to state and local public works; it does not travel onto a federal project merely because the work is in California. Article 2 of the Commercial Code governs sales of goods and says nothing about wages. B&P §7108 concerns diversion of funds by a licensee, not wage rates.

The performance bond names the public agency as obligee and guarantees that the work will be completed according to the contract; if the contractor defaults, the surety arranges completion or pays damages up to the penal sum. Unpaid subs and suppliers look instead to the payment bond required by Civil Code §9550 and to a stop payment notice. A surety bond is not insurance for the principal: it never indemnifies the contractor against its own defective work, and the surety may seek reimbursement from the contractor after paying. Delay damages against the agency are a contract claim, not a bond promise.

Labor Code §1725.5 makes DIR public works registration an annual registration with an annual fee, and it must be current at the moment the contractor bids, is listed on a bid, is awarded work, or performs. A CSLB licence is a separate requirement and waives nothing. A one-time registration would defeat the annual fee the statute imposes. Registration attaches to the contractor, not to the job, so one current registration covers every covered project rather than being repeated contract by contract.

Because public property cannot be liened, the unpaid subcontractor's security is the prime's payment bond: it must give any preliminary notice its position requires and then sue on the bond, which Civil Code §9558 allows any time after it stops work but no later than six months after the stop-notice period in §9356 closes. Recording a lien against the school or city building is void from the start. Retention is money owed the prime under the prime contract, not a fund the agency pays claimants from. No agency consent is needed or available; the bond is a contract with the surety.

Labor Code §1773.1 lets the employer count payments to bona fide health and welfare, pension, vacation and holiday, apprenticeship and training, and similar plans toward the total prevailing wage obligation, so long as the worker still receives the full package of cash plus creditable benefits. Overhead is the contractor's own cost of doing business and buys the worker nothing. Meals and lodging are not on the §1773.1 list; travel and subsistence are separately owed under §1773.8. The last option states the opposite of the rule: benefits are creditable, which is exactly why §1773.1 exists.

Labor Code §1774 binds the contractor and every subcontractor to pay not less than the prevailing rate, and §1772 covers all workers employed on the public work in covered classifications. The duty is not waivable by silence, so a worker who never asks is still owed it. Union membership and dispatch are irrelevant: the rate is set by craft and county, not by who hired the worker. Confining it to the prime's own payroll is the error §1774 exists to prevent, since most public works labour is performed by subcontractors.

Competitive sealed bidding exists to spend public money economically and to give every qualified bidder the same shot, which is why the award goes to the lowest responsible, responsive bidder on published criteria. It does not remove the bonding requirements, which come from the call for bids and Civil Code §9550 and apply on top of it. Discretion to pick a favourite is the very thing the process removes. Wage rates are fixed by the DIR determination under Labor Code §1773 whatever bidding method is used, and they are not union rates by definition.