I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this until now. I suppose I should have been paying attention a couple of weeks ago.
Bush has suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which apparently governs minimum wages for federal contract workers, because allowing his buddies at Bechtel to hire desperate people at bargain basement wages…
I suppose fair’s fair, though, since FEMA et al are making KBR, Bechtel, Flour, and such compete for those contracts like a pack of starving pit bulls.
EIGHTY FUCKING PERCENT of that FEMA money is going for no-bid, garunteed profit work.
W.
T.
F?
Somebody please try to justify this to me. Please.
And now, a question from an ignoramus: does the suspension of DB affect the regular federal minimum wage at all? Could, say, KBR pay some dude two bucks an hour to nail down shingles? That would suck even more.
It shouldn’t affect the regular minimum wage - Davis-Bacon just applies to government projects. It pretty much just says that government contractors have to pay a certain wage level, called “prevailing wage”, for certain kinds of work - in theory, it’s supposed to be a wage rate about equal to that for similar work in that geographic area. (Of course that’s not how it works in reality.) It was put into place originally as a concession to unions that the government wouldn’t use its purchasing power to water down local wage rates, and to ensure that government contractors paid their employees a decent wage.
Enforcement of the law is pretty weak, generally - there’s nothing to stop a contractor from employing someone as, say, a Laborer Third Class even when the work being done would fall under the higher Laborer Second Class rate.
This is probably so that migrant workers (Mexican workers) can participate in the cleanup. Really, there’s justification for the wages (not the illegal status). There are so many things to do and there aren’t enough people for a cleanup and reconstruction effort of that sort. Yeah, some companies are going to profit from that. Good for them and there’s no reason to be jealous. You don’t have a job without someone making a profit. Without paying immigrants, there’s just no way anyone will work for the money that’s available. Think of how many billions of dollars in damage there is. Now think if you’re paying a lazy union worker 10x what they’re worth and they only work 1/5th as hard as anyone else does, how much more are the damages?
Go into business for yourself. Find a better job. Go to hell, but stop screwing me over and forcing me to participate in your corrupt organization that sponsors corrupt politics that has quasi-communist ideals that preach how the companies that make this country great are out to screw everyone and are NON democratic. National Right to Work Right to Work Committee uawsucks.org
Yes, I am a union member, and it’s a shameful, shameful thing.
Those same migrant workers would probably be willing to do the job for more money, correct? So why the fuck is it a problem?
My issue isn’t that somebody is going to make a profit off of this. It’s that we, the taxpayers, are garunteeing the minimum amount of profit that somebody will make. And doing it without having an open bidding proccess. And doing it while encouraging the companies to screw their workers.
As a union member, you don’t have a problem with this Dragon Punch to the cock?
Are you saying that, because the Davis Bacon requirements (which require a LOT of tedious paperwork) are not being enforced, workers are going to be paid less money? With the BILLIONS of dollars in work that will be done, there is going to be a lot of demand for skilled laborers. I would imagine that the wages will be quite a bit higher than they were pre-Katrina, based on the shear volume of work that will be competing for laborers with other construction work.
The big losers in this are the vampires that specialize in “compliance”, such as:
There is a metric pantload of paperwork and red tape involved in proving that you are paying the “prevailing wage.” This administrative burden adds a lot of cost and no or very little useful benefit.
To answer the question at the end of the OP: no, suspension of DB doesn’t affect the federal minimum wage. The guy nailing down shingles will likely make more than the “prevailing” wage, because there are so many shingles to nail down. There are a few paperpushers that won’t get their cut of the pie to document that Joe Shinglenailer got paid 125% of the prevailing wage for roofers.
No problem whatsoever. People always get paid what they’re worth, except for union members (they get paid what they can extort), and many minimum wage workers (they get paid an artificially high wage per law). It’s a free market. Make yourself valuable, or live on what you can make.
By the links and comments in his post, I’d have to say that he probably thinks that being forced to join a union and pay dues is the Dragon Punch to the cock.
Agreed. Been there, done that as a Teamster. If you are a hard worker in the swamp of mediocrity, the only thing you can do is get pissed off enough to start your own business. Why should your output subsidize someone else’s laziness?
One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but NPR interviewed a guy from NO last week, working on cleanup, and he says he’s making double what he made in his regular pre-Katrina job.
It’s probably less than what he’d be making if he was working a disaster in New York or California, where prevailing wage is presumably much higher than Louisiana, but he was tickled pink at the opportunity.
Having been a Teamster Union Steward for many a moon (that’s the only way you can get your dues back) I would have to agree with Balthisar and Yeticus and would add that while unions are necessary in many workplaces, that they’ve gotten so large, and so corrupt that they’ve outlived their usefulness in the modern Labor force, and are just another level of management. I would be pro-union, if the unions were pro-labor, but they’re not.
As far as Davis is concerned, I think it sounds worse than it is. I think that some red tape was cut, and that there will be plenty of jobs for plenty of people in the coming months and years, and at a liveable wage. So, meh.
Go to hell, but stop screwing me over and forcing me to participate in your corrupt organization that sponsors corrupt politics that has quasi-communist ideals that preach how the companies that make this country great are out to screw everyone and are NON democratic.
QUOTE]
Mind explaining to me what companies “make this country great” and how they do it?
The way I heard it explained on NPR last week was that by not having to go by the prevailing wage, the contractors can actually pay more to entice people to come work there. e.g. if everyone in the vicinity makes $6.00/hr. pulling out fish guts, the act will let the contractors pay more than that to hire people to clean up debris, set up trailers and temporary housing, things like that.
I remember the guy NPR who made more money, he was learning about prefab houses and stuff and was making ~15/hr, not bad for unskilled labour.
All of them with a few exceptions. I guess I’ll backpeddle and change “make this country great” and rephrase that, “essential to this country’s greatness.” It’s a small distinction, but an important distinction. Now the explanation as to “why they’re essential to the country’s greatness” ought to be friggin’ obvious. What would we be without private enterprise? On the other hand, it could be you think North Korea’s great, in which case there’s just no talking to you.
Can you answer the question, please? I agree with you, companies run by decent people (most of them, I assume) are important to our countries’ economies; they are what makes those economies work. But woodstockbirdybird just asked you to explain how this works, and you answer something that amounts to “go back to North Korea, you fucking commie”. Hey, if capitalists can’t or don’t want to explain why their favourite economic system works well (when there is some government intervention, in my opinion, but maybe you’d disagree), I can understand why people would search for alternate systems.
No, I do not think North Korea’s great, Senator McCarthy. I am not now and have never been a member of the Communist party. Jesus fucking Christ.
Now, I agree that free enterprise is part of what makes this country great - that’s what I was getting at: it’s the ideals this country was founded upon that make this country great. That’s a far cry, in my mind, from saying everybody who participates in the free market makes this country great. I think freedom of speech is another thing that’s great here; I don’t think that those who use their free speech to spout hatred or participate in witch hunts “make this country great”, however. And pretending that there aren’t companies that engage in shady business practices or treat their employees unfairly, or that anyone who can’t make a decent wage is just lazy or should move somewhere else is the kind of stupid shit I expect to hear from jingoists.
Union workers use their power as the people providing the labor to look after their own interests. Just like the people that own the Capitol and means of production do whatever they can to look after their interest. You can’t call one evil and the other a shining beacon of virtue.
Tell me, are sweatshop workers who get paid 25 cents an hour to make 50 dollar pairs of shoes paid what they are worth? Is that the beauty of the free market at work?
And no, I’m not saying that Bush is making people work at slave wages. What I am saying is that Pure Capitalism, just like Pure Communism, may be beautiful in theory but in practice leads to much suffering.