By: Bridgetower Media Newswires
May 12, 2017 11:52 am
Today there is a new and more compelling reason to keep Davis-Bacon and prevailing-wage laws.
The unexpected result of Davis-Bacon and prevailing-wage laws is that they are empowering careers for the American disadvantaged worker. With advances in technology and with laws requiring government agencies to collect wage and worker data, local communities are taking advantage of this information to ensure their worker-hiring programs are successful. The results have been transformative.
Government agencies can now not only track wages; they can also keep track of how many people from various groups are being hired. Members of some of these groups have historically not been seen in large numbers in the construction industry. Meanwhile, inner cities are struggling economically and unemployment is running rampant in minority segments of our society.
Cities and public agencies are responding by attaching hiring goals to public-works projects. These call on contractors to hire local, underrepresented and economically disadvantaged workers.
Prevailing wages and Davis-Bacon laws have enabled these workforce programs to gain visibility and transparency through the requirement of certified payroll reporting. These reports have proved to be an invaluable means of tracking workforce goals, since information about workers’ sex, ethnicity and zip codes must also be submitted.