(a) The Department of General Services provides for the specialized consideration of all traffic problems of the state; develops specialized knowledge of rates, tariffs, and traffic problems to the end that all state shipments be accomplished in the most expeditious, economical, and efficient manner possible via carrier or carriers whose drivers and supporting personnel are operating under current collective-bargaining agreements or who are maintaining the prevailing wages, standards and conditions of employment for its driver and supporting personnel employees; insures adequate state representation before administrative rate-setting bodies; disseminates traffic information throughout all state agencies.

(b) In establishing procedures for obtaining commercial moving services under competitive bid contracts the department shall act in accordance with the following:

Every contract (and any bid specification therefor) hereby authorized and entered into by the state in excess of two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), the principal purpose of which is to furnish commercial moving services to relocate state offices, facilities and institutions, shall specify that no contractor performing thereunder shall pay any employee actually engaged in the moving or handling of goods being relocated under such contract less than the prevailing wage rate, except consideration may be given to bids not conforming with these employee cost provisions in areas where no such employee wage standards and conditions are reasonably available. The term “prevailing wage rate,” as used in this subdivision, means the rate paid to a majority of workmen engaged in the particular craft, classification or type of work within the locality if a majority of such workmen be paid at a single rate; if there be no single rate being paid to a majority, then the rate being paid the greater number. The determination required by this subdivision of wage rates prevailing in a given area shall be made by the Department of Industrial Relations.

(c) The term “supporting personnel” for the purposes of this chapter shall include all employees of a carrier who directly participate in the actual moving and handling of goods.

The amendments to this section during the 1975–76 Regular Session, shall not apply to any contract, including those that may be renewed periodically, which affects the wage rates of supporting personnel until the end of the renewal period or the end of the contract, whichever first occurs.

(Amended by Stats. 1975, Ch. 1174.)