Davis-Bacon wage agreements, New Orleans, my local LTTE

[pinto]

Ms. so and so's letter (9/23/05) was a welcomed reminder.

The Davis-Bacon Act was enacted to set a fair wage standard for workers hired under federal subcontracts. It has been in place for over 70 years, and helps set a local pay scale based on local prevailing wages.

Suspension of the provisions in the Gulf region has been touted as an incentive to reconstruction. I’m not sure why.

Will "below scale" wages attract more applicants for reconstruction work in a region that has massive unemployment due to the hurricane? I doubt it. Will "prevailing wage" hinder hiring and reconstruction? I doubt it.

Reneging on long term wage agreements in the region seems a petty slap in the face to locals, given the administration’s talk about New Orleans rebuilding itself. What’s wrong with prevailing wage for New Orleans residents, especially when it’s the federal standard everywhere else?

In a broader sense, it’s also about the role of the federal government and its oversight of departments and corporations hired to perform basic federal functions. Something’s wrong here.

The bottom line ought to be the people of the Gulf Coast.

Reconstruction needs to be disengaged from business as usual and the federal government has to cut to the chase, and do its job.

Yet the administration persists in handing it off and making the best of it on TV.

Sadly, I think it’s a measure of how far this administration will go to divest itself from its own public responsibility.

The suspension of Davis-Bacon does nothing to foster the reconstruction of the Katrina devastation. I don’t buy it.

(pinto)

[bostonbabs]

1. Davis-Bacon has me over the edge

cut the soldiers pay and benefits while giving the "contractors" huge salaries...because don't forget the contractors can give some of the money back to you in campaign funding, more money to 'swift boat' anyone who gets in our way.....

Let's see that "model" worked



Now Katrina again cut the wages of the workers with Davis Bacon a bill that was introduced in 1931 when companies had no money and they like the workers needed relief. Of course today you have corporations awash in profits......Exxon Mobile just release it's quarter figures they made 10 billion dollars....the highest of any company ever AND it was 67% up over last year and 34% over the year before.....and they got a 4 billion dollar "giveaway" in the new "energy bill"......so we cut the workers wages and give the contractors all they want ....no bid contracts included.....this is beyond belief......workers should be treated like the workers on the Alaska Pipline....this is a "public work"....why in hell should one part of the PUBLIC receive less than another part......? Why do they do this because as Andrew Fastow said before he was sentenced for his deeds at Enron : "because we could".....no one is stopping them.