Union Payroll Specialist

The seat

Russ Hadick Associates, Inc. have partnered with a Bridge Builder that operates from 4 states with West Virginia as the Hub. It runs union crews across West Virginia and the surrounding region. This role owns the payroll that keeps those crews paid correctly and keeps the company square with its collective bargaining agreements and its owners.

This is not a general payroll job with a union label on it. The work is multi-employer fringe benefit reporting, several agreements with different rates and different rules, and certified payroll on public work. A candidate who has only run commercial payroll in a single-rate shop will be learning the hardest part of this job on the client's time.

What you'll actually do

• Process weekly payroll for union field crews across multiple crafts and multiple collective bargaining agreements, each with its own base rate, fringe package and dues structure.
• Apply the correct wage determination by craft, classification and job — including split classifications when a person works more than one classification in a week.
• Prepare and file monthly fringe benefit remittance reports to the various trust funds — health & welfare, pension, annuity, apprenticeship/training — and reconcile what was reported against what was paid.
• Handle union dues checkoff and working assessments, and remit to the locals on their schedules.
• Produce certified payroll reports (WH-347) with signed statements of compliance for Davis-Bacon covered work, and respond to owner, agency and compliance-monitor requests.
• Track and apply prevailing wage determinations and any zone/travel pay, shift premiums and overtime rules the agreements require.
• Maintain job costing accuracy — payroll is the largest cost feed into job cost, and the labor distribution has to land on the right job, phase and cost code.
• Reconcile payroll to the general ledger, support month-end close, and pull the payroll schedules for the annual audit and for workers' comp and fringe benefit fund audits.
• Manage garnishments, child support orders, and multi-state withholding (WV plus adjacent states where crews travel).
• Onboard new field hires into payroll, maintain the employee master, and keep union classification and apprenticeship step-ups current.

What we need to see

Required

• Hands-on union payroll experience in construction — multiple CBAs, fringe benefit fund reporting, dues checkoff. This is the non-negotiable one.
• Certified payroll / Davis-Bacon experience (WH-347) on public work.
• Comfort with weekly payroll under a hard deadline, for a workforce that changes size week to week.
• Solid Excel, and demonstrated accuracy under time pressure.

Strongly preferred

• Construction ERP experience — Viewpoint Vista, Spectrum, Foundation, Sage 300 CRE (Timberline), HeavyJob or similar.
• Multi-state payroll exposure.
• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) or Fundamental Payroll Certification (FPC).
• Experience through a fringe benefit fund audit or a DOL compliance review.

Not required

• A degree. This is a seat where the specific experience matters more than the credential.

Why the seat is worth a conversation

• Employee-owned through an ESOP. You would be an owner, not just an employee.
• A growing contractor, not a steady-state one. Over $160M of new work awarded in July 2026 alone — the Fort Hill Bridge rehab on I-64 over the Kanawha (WV's busiest bridge) and a Corridor H extension — neither yet started. Roughly $415M in disclosed awards since 2022.
• The payroll function here is owned, not shared. This is the person for union and certified payroll, not one of six people in a payroll pool.
• Because the company self-performs pile driving, steel erection, concrete, excavation and tunnelling, the fringe compliance stays in-house rather than being pushed onto subs. 800+ craft employees across multiple locals and five states — this is a heavy payroll, and the work is substantial.
• Direct line to the Controller on a finance team of about two — visible work with the decision makers.
• St. Albans base, no travel, no relocation of the crews' problems onto your evenings.