From a
link in that article:
Quote:
|
The Davis-Bacon Act can add weeks to federally financed construction projects, and it effectively discriminates against non-union contractors, often driving up costs.
|
Basically the Davis-Bacon Act requires government contractors to pay their employees wages similar to the ones that other employers in the reigion pay their employees, and those wages can be quite high depending on how unionized the local workforce is. Some contractors can't afford to pay those wages, so either they have to lay off some of their employees to get the contract, or else they just don't bid on it and hope they can find non-government funded projects to keep them busy. You can imagine that in a disaster zone like the one created by the hurricane that all the rebuilding jobs are being contracted by the feds.
Now, if a construction worker wants to find a job rebuilding his home town he can find a company that's willing to pay him prevailing wages, so obviously the act wasn't repealed for the benefit of employees. The president did this for small companies so they could get government contracts without hiring union labor. I'm not defending the president's decision here, but this is probably what he was thinking when he did it.