Hiring law basics for electrical contractors

Hiring an electrician legally comes down to nine items. Do an I-9 within three business days, run E-Verify where your state or contract requires it, follow the FCRA steps if you use a background check company, test for drugs inside your state's rules, put him on W-2, post a pay range where the law says to, report the hire within 20 days, skip the noncompete, and document his safety training.

None of it needs a lawyer on retainer once you have a system. This is federal law plus the state rules that come up most for electrical shops, as of October 2026. Rules change by state and city, so each section links the agency. This is general information, not legal advice. When a hire gets complicated (a record that worries you, a positive test, a man you've been paying on a 1099), talk to your employment lawyer before you act.

01The hire file at a glance

Every new hand should leave a paper trail you could hand an auditor. Here's the order it happens in.

Keep the license lookup in the same file: a printout from the state board with his name, license class, status and the date you checked.

02Form I-9 and E-Verify

Every employer must complete a Form I-9 for every new hire, and some must also run the hire through E-Verify. The rules are on the USCIS I-9 page and E-Verify.gov.

Form I-9

The current form carries a 01/20/25 edition date. The employee fills out Section 1 by his first day. You finish Section 2, where you look at his documents, "within three business days of the date employment begins." USCIS gives the example plainly: start Monday, Section 2 done by Thursday. If the job runs under three business days, Section 2 is due on day one.

Keep each I-9 for three years after the hire date or one year after he leaves, whichever is later. You don't send it anywhere. You keep it ready for inspection by DHS, the Department of Labor or the Department of Justice.

A common miss on a travel crew: the man starts on a jobsite three states from the office and nobody looks at his documents until he comes back. Pick someone on site, usually the foreman, to do Section 2, or use the DHS remote procedure if your company qualifies for it (it's tied to E-Verify). If you examine documents remotely under that procedure, you check a box in Section 2 that says so.

E-Verify

E-Verify isn't required everywhere. Three triggers matter most for electrical contractors:

Florida has teeth. The state sends a written notice and gives you 30 days to fix a miss. Get caught skipping E-Verify three times in any 24 months and you owe $1,000 a day until it's fixed, and your state licenses can be suspended. Other states have E-Verify laws too. Check yours before your first hire there.

03Background checks: the FCRA steps

If you pay a company to run a background check, the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the steps, and the FTC's guide for employers spells them out.

1. Tell him in writing you may use a report, in a stand-alone document. Not buried in the application.
2. Get his written permission.
3. Certify to the screening company that you did steps 1 and 2 and won't misuse the report.
4. Before you turn him down because of the report, give him a copy of it and "A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act," so he can explain or correct it.
5. After you decide, send an adverse action notice: the screening company's name, address and phone, that the company didn't make the decision, and that he can dispute the report and get a free copy within 60 days.
6. Shred the report when you no longer need it.

Keep application and hiring records, including for people you didn't hire, for one year (two years for some federal contractors). Don't ask medical questions before a conditional job offer.

Criminal records add two more layers. The EEOC's 2012 guidance says an arrest alone doesn't prove anything happened, and that for a conviction you should weigh the offense, how long ago it was and the job itself. And at least 15 states, per a 2021 count by the National Employment Law Project, limit when private employers can ask about a record. California's Fair Chance Act bars employers with five or more employees from asking before a job offer. We go through each step in hiring an electrician with a felony record, and how shops make it work day to day in second-chance hiring for electrical contractors.

04Drug testing

You can drug test in most states, but several states now limit pre-hire marijuana tests. Federal OSHA's position is in its 2018 memo on drug testing.

OSHA says "most instances of workplace drug testing are permissible," including random tests and tests after an incident. What it won't allow is testing used to punish someone for reporting an injury. If you test after an incident, test everyone whose conduct could have contributed, not only the man who got hurt.

The state rules are where shops get caught:

• Washington bars refusing to hire over off-duty cannabis use or a test that finds only non-psychoactive metabolites, unless the job is a safety-sensitive position you named before he applied (RCW 49.44.240).
• Minnesota bars requiring an applicant to take a cannabis test, except for safety-sensitive positions and a few others, and requires a written testing policy before any testing (Minn. Stat. 181.951).
• California's protection for off-duty use doesn't apply to employees in the building and construction trades, but its ban on asking applicants about past use has no such carve-out.

The state-by-state detail, and how to write a policy that holds up, is in drug testing electricians after legal weed.

05W-2 or 1099: classify him right

A journeyman doing electrical work on your crew is almost always your employee, not a 1099 contractor. The IRS common-law test looks at who controls the work, who controls the money side, and whether the relationship looks like a job.

Electrical work is the business of an electrical contractor. That's a problem under every test. California and Massachusetts use an ABC test that presumes he's an employee unless his work is "outside the usual course" of your business. The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 13 asks whether his work is "an integral part" of your business. And some state license laws, like Minnesota's and Michigan's, only let a licensed electrician do the work as an employee of a licensed contractor.

If the IRS finds you treated an employee as a contractor without a reasonable basis, you can owe his employment taxes. Unpaid overtime under federal law comes with an equal amount on top as damages. The full breakdown is in can you hire an electrician as a 1099 contractor.

06Pay ranges in job ads

A growing list of states requires a pay range in job ads, and two of the clearest are Washington and New York. The rules are on the Washington L&I and New York DOL sites.

• Washington: employers with 15 or more employees must post a wage scale or salary range, a general description of benefits, and other pay like bonuses or commissions. After written notice of a bad post, you have 5 business days to fix it. Since July 27, 2025, an ad can't require a driver's license unless driving is part of the job.
• New York: employers with four or more employees must post the lowest and highest pay they believe is accurate, and say if a job is commission-based.

Other states and cities have their own versions. In any of them, your competitors' ads are now free market data on what they pay. Which states require what is in which states require pay ranges in electrician job ads.

07New hire report and W-4

Report every new hire to your state within 20 days, and have him fill out a W-4 for federal withholding. The 20-day rule is federal law (42 U.S.C. 653a); the W-4 is on the IRS site.

The report needs his name, address and Social Security number, the date he first worked for pay, and your business name, address and EIN. States can set a shorter deadline, so check your state's new hire page. Many states have their own withholding form too. A traveler who lives in one state and works in another may need both states' forms. Ask your payroll provider.

08Noncompetes

A noncompete won't hold a journeyman in many states, and there is no federal ban to rely on either way. The FTC's noncompete rule never took effect, and a February 12, 2026 Federal Register notice removed it.

That leaves state law. Minnesota voids nearly all employee noncompetes (Minn. Stat. 181.988). North Dakota voids contracts that restrain anyone from a lawful trade, with narrow exceptions like selling a business (N.D.C.C. 9-08-06). Even where a noncompete is legal, suing a J-man rarely gets the slot filled. Details by state, and what works better, are in do non-competes work for electricians.

09OSHA training

OSHA requires you to train every hand on the hazards of his job, and some of that training must be documented. The general rule is 29 CFR 1926.21(b)(2): "The employer shall instruct each employee in the recognition and avoidance of unsafe conditions" and the rules that apply where he works.

A few pieces new hires trip on:

• Fall protection (1926.503): a training program for anyone who might be exposed to falls, plus a written certification record with his name, the date and the trainer's or employer's signature.
• Energized circuits (1926.416(a)(3)): before work starts, find out if live circuits are near the work, post warnings and tell the crew where they are.
• OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 cards: OSHA itself says the outreach program "is a voluntary program and does not meet the training requirements for any OSHA standards." A card doesn't replace your own site training.
• State card rules: Nevada requires construction workers to get an OSHA-10 card within 15 days of hire and supervisors an OSHA-30, and the employer must suspend or terminate anyone who doesn't (NRS 618.983 and 618.987).

More on what's required and what's only expected by GCs is in OSHA training your electricians need.

10Prevailing wage and Davis-Bacon

On federally funded construction over $2,000, you must pay at least the local prevailing wage plus fringe for each classification, and file certified payroll every week. The Department of Labor's Davis-Bacon page covers it, and the wage determinations live on SAM.gov.

Three hiring points:

• Certified payroll is due "weekly, for each week in which any DBA- or Related Acts-covered work is performed," with a signed Statement of Compliance (29 CFR 5.5).
• Apprentices can get the apprentice rate only if they're individually registered in a bona fide program and inside its ratio. Anyone over the ratio gets the full rate for the work he did.
• States have their own prevailing wage laws for state and local public work, with different thresholds. Check yours before you bid.

The wage determination is also a handy read on union scale in a county, even if you never bid public work. More in Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage for electrical contractors.

11The one-page checklist

Print this and clip it inside the hire folder.

1. License looked up on the state board, printed with the date.
2. Background check consent (stand-alone form) signed, if you use a screening company.
3. Conditional offer in writing. Drug test, if your policy and state allow it.
4. I-9 Section 1 on day one, Section 2 by day three. E-Verify if required.
5. W-4 and state withholding form.
6. Safety orientation and fall protection record signed. OSHA-10 card copied where required.
7. New hire report filed within 20 days.
8. On public work: classification, rate and fringe set from the wage determination.

Hiring law is the easy part once it's a habit. Finding the hand to put through it is the hard part. If you're short-handed now, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

FAQFAQs