What is the Davis-Bacon Act?

[goldie]

Whatever it is The Davis-Bacon Act, the Prez just repealed it.

Why?

[albed]

http://www.google.com/

[Mazer]

From a link in that article:

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rebuilding his home town he can find a company that's willing to pay him prevailing wages, so obviously the act wasn't repealed for the benefit of employees.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.

[goldie]

i know what it is albed :S

what i'd like to know is why was it repealed....

the only purpose i can see is to open the door for lower-paid possibly illegal immigrants to come in.

surely this isn't the case and there's more to it than that.

and another thing.........since the media has katrina and rita plastered all over the place, why isn't this?

sigh

[tambourine-man]

Because the under-resourced, shabby and over-worked media can only possibly cover one scandal at a time (unless it involves some form of sexual solicitation). Asking them to do otherwise would be a terrible strain on their graphics and razzamatazz department.

Also, it's not being covered because people like stories they can understand and can be broke down into easily digestable chunks. Stories that can be outlined by uttering single words in a monotonous manner are good, like: "Flood... people died... that guy's fault...". Asking people to concern themselves with a complex union issue is being optomistic at best... and the networks know that.

[JackSpratts]

lack of imagination on the media's part or outright timidity. i'd call it the "bush pro-scab" decree. most viewers'd get that just fine.

- js.

[goldie]

Originally Posted by Mazer

From a link in that article:

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.

sorry, didn't refresh and missed this.

Mazer i certainly can follow that reasoning, i just wonder if there are limits on how low even the smallest contractors will go. Most southern states don't have unionized anything - like where i live, it's a purely a right-to-work state.

In NJ (where i used to live) there were unions up the arse.

I can see the good and bad of both especially with the higher union wages up north.


According to this

Minimum Wage, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi among others, there is no minimum wage or it's well below the national average. So I guess in a way, if a contractor wants to pay $2-3 an hour using Mexican immigrants - they could and no questions would be asked. (and i am of no means slamming Mexicans or any other ethnic groups here).

I dunno, seeing any law repealed which serves to protect certain ideals (even ones such as Davis-Bacon) and nothing added to safeguard workers (minimum wage for instance) can't be entirely a good thing.

added: especially considering the incredible amount of destruction and equally incredible amount of $rebuilding$ capital that will be floating around.

Just thinking outloud here.

[ONEMANBANNED]

Any thoughts Nic

Thought you would be on this one like a fat kid on a smarty

[albed]

Just as you have the right to buy goods at the lowest market price, companies should have the right to hire labor at the lowest market price.



Probably too complex an explanation for some, but what can you do?

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by albed

Just as you have the right to buy goods at the lowest market price, companies should have the right to hire labor at the lowest market price.



Probably too complex an explanation for some, but what can you do?

not much to get or like. it's called feudalism.

- js.

[albed]

Like I said, too complex...

http://www.answers.com/feudalism&r=67
feu·dal·ism (fyūd'l-ĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.

1. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.
2. A political, economic, or social order resembling this medieval system.



Some people are just too warped to understand freedom; free employers offering jobs at their choice of wage and free workers with the choice of taking or refusing the jobs.

[goldie]

well geez albed.....maybe that's why so many people are on welfare, they can get paid and not even break a sweat.











btw, asked you a ? about where you find your .srt's. found 1 looks good are there more?

[albed]

Sure; you can compare welfare to a job where you don't have to work. If there weren't restrictions everyone would take it.

But of course there's no way the 'employer' can make money so he has to steal from others to pay the wages.

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by albed

Like I said, too complex...

http://www.answers.com/feudalism&r=67
feu·dal·ism (fyūd'l-ĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.

1. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.
2. A political, economic, or social order resembling this medieval system.



Some people are just too warped to understand freedom; free employers offering jobs at their choice of wage and free workers with the choice of taking or refusing the jobs.

right. as is usual with your typical troll-like deliberate obtuseness you ignore the main point and distract with narrow definitions that obscure any greater meaning you seem to find threatening, which judging by your remarkably, consistently undeveloped posts over the years, seems to be just about everything.

since under the present administration more and more companies are merging, workers in industries find their employment options shrinking, until, like those in cable, they have no employment options save the government mandated monopoly in their city or state. as for doing a horatio alger and starting your own cable company you can forget it, even if you got the backers – it’s illegal. ditto those people working in the record business, where some four companies now control nearly all the jobs.

people can change careers of course, small comfort if one’s life was spent in service to an industry, or they can move, but when one has roots in a community, children in schools etc. moving becomes increasingly unrealistic, especially when similar feudal-like factors now govern life in every community. ultimately this leads to acceptance of one’s diminished status.

like feudalism this policy is deliberately designed to benefit the employer and penalize the worker.. but it gets worse for the worker since more and more professionals, like teachers and air traffic controllers, lose whatever small leverage they have when the ability to lawfully protest by laying down one’s tools is banned, even if their terms of employment changes after their hiring, making them essentially captive workers. they can quit, but again they’d have to quit their career as well as their job – perhaps even their communities, voting with one’s feet in other words which should always be a last resort, like broken okies fleeing depression era dust bowls and done only in desperation when all other options fail. in america unfortunately fleeing is increasingly the only resort, as our public policy makers have failed the workers. this isn’t freedom. it’s an illusion of choices masking hard realties of corporate servitude, where workers gain little and officers take in billions.

D. Boje “ If we look at the trend in global capitalism today, we are descending into a form of feudal capitalism where instead of Intellectual Capitalism, we have a system of supply chains linked to Third World Sweatshops. There is an assumption of unswerving progress, that is not consistent with the rise in feudal sweatshops. The Department of Labor, for example, reports that there are 700 sweatshops in the U.S. The number of sweatshops is growing each year as production from the 1st world migrates to the 3rd world where the choice is work for poverty wage or starve. True, it is better to work than starve, but an intellectual capitalism can be answerable for its ethics.”
http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching...odern_lead.htm

Miriam Clinton “ Instead of permitting any actions whatsoever by the free market without intervention; a situation which at present has lead full circle to the current “information feudalism” of business over the people, that which is not healthy for society would be called to review. No longer would we be subject to the whims of the RIAA and its overwriting of the law via bully-boy tactics out of court.”
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...ewpost&t=22024

- js.

[Mazer]

This is a complex econimic issue that is probably over my head, but suffice it to say, what's good for the employer and the employee is what's best for the market. Sometimes unions have to be formed and labor laws have to be enacted, and other times unions have to be busted and labor laws struck down to maintain the balance. But considering what goldie has mentioned about unionization and minimum wage in the south I have a hard time believing the act was repealed for their benefit, unless I'm missing some subtilty here.