Pelosi: * Undermines Workers Rights for Livable Wages in Hurricane Areas

[paineinthearse]

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=52963

Pelosi: Bush Administration Undermines Workers Rights for Livable Wages in Hurricane Stricken Areas

9/8/2005 7:44:00 PM


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To: National Desk

Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both of the Office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement this evening in response to President Bush's executive order rescinding the Davis-Bacon Act in hurricane stricken areas, allowing employers using federal disaster assistance money to pay unfair wages to workers in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

"The Davis-Bacon Act was signed into law in the Great Depression, a time when scurrilous employers were taking advantage of the desperation of American workers to care for their families. At that time, and for more than 70 years since then, the federal government has demanded that when taxpayer money is spent, workers should be paid a livable wage.

"But today, the Bush Administration demonstrated the latest example of its anti-worker agenda, with an executive order rescinding the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act for areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. That means that as workers return to their lives and livelihoods on the Gulf Coast, the Bush Administration wants to use federal money to exploit them by paying less than the prevailing wage.

"It's this simple: Hurricane Katrina took away their jobs, now President Bush will take away their wages when they find new jobs. This is a partisan and punitive decision that will make economic recovery much hard for workers and their families.

"Now is a time to come together to rebuild and restore, not undo years of hard-won workers rights. Democrats call on President Bush to immediately rescind this order, so that American families can get on with the hard work of rebuilding their lives."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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[clmbohdem]

1. Just heard this on Malloy, this is so MEAN!!!!

[napi21]

3. MEAN???? That's sure not what I cal it!

How about evil, dstructive, unconctitutional!!!!!! Illegal!

I really think it is illegal! Any attorneys here that can answer this?

[xray s]

2. Bush to workers

[OKDem08]

4. Totally and completely detached from reality

this guy is just begging for impeachment!

[Trillo]

5. Lower Wages?

"Uh, oh, looks like we need to rebuild NO. That's hard to outsource." The president stared for a moment, then a with a stroke of a pen and a gleeful expression proclaimed, "LOWER WAGES!"

Republican Agenda--The GOP working daily to Gouge our Poor.

[newswolf56]

6. An outrage, but absolutely predictable:

The latest example of Bush's rapidly intensifying class-war against everyone who is not part of the oligarchy. What this means is the plutocrats -- fat-cats who are already anticipating obscene profits from the post-hurricane cleanup -- will make even more money by paying Wal-Mart wages to workers who formerly made union-scale.

How much more evidence does America need before it will stop paying knee-jerk homage to capitalism? Bush is capitalism's ultimate achievement: a president elected specifically to facilitate the concentration of oligarchic wealth and power, the restoration of capitalism to its Tyrannosauric pre-1917 savagery, and the unabashedly brutal reduction of all the rest of us -- everyone who is not part of the oligarchy -- to exactly the sort of degradation and misery we now see in New Orleans.

Alas, most Americans are too identify-with-the-oppressor brainwashed by the obscene deluge of advertising -- a mind-numbing constant that did not cease even for the worst natural disaster in U.S. history -- to be able to understand what is happening. This is why even now -- look at the polls -- John Edward's vital message falls on deaf ears.