My Turn: Armand E. Sabitoni: Morgan attacks construction workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Armand E. Sabitoni
Posted Apr 10, 2018 at 5:49 PM

There is no greater investment than ensuring our children have the foundation built for future success. As Rhode Island’s school buildings get older and unhealthier each year, the time is now to invest in new school infrastructure. Building new schools and making necessary technology updates are vital to Rhode Island’s economic recovery and also stimulate job growth.

Construction workers are the backbone of a strong economy and play a critical role in school infrastructure investment. Skilled men and women go to work each day, in sometimes difficult conditions to put food on the table for their families. Tirelessly, they pour blood and sweat safely and efficiently building our roads, bridges, schools, water and energy systems.

Unfortunately, on her March 30 Commentary piece (“Fix more R.I. schools for less money”), Rhode Island House Minority Leader, Patricia Morgan, sadly insinuates that all construction workers are overpaid and should take a pay cut to build our schools.

Morgan proposes that the state exempt school construction from the state’s prevailing wage law, falsely thinking this will save money. Some elected officials have tried this charade in other states, attacking the livelihood of blue-collar workers they claim to represent.

Prevailing wage laws are bipartisan and have Republican roots back to 1931, when Sen. James Davis, R-Pa., and Rep. Robert L. Bacon, R-N.Y., helped to pass the Davis-Bacon Act federally and most states passed local prevailing wage laws quickly thereafter. Nationally, Republicans and Democrats, consistently support prevailing wage laws as necessary to protect family-supporting, blue-collar construction jobs.

Prevailing wage laws guarantee a minimum floor for wages, leveling the playing field for construction contractors bidding public work. Data based on what skilled workers earn in a local area are used to set the prevailing wage rate.

All construction workers, union and non-union, are paid a set wage and benefit rate determined by market surveys for work performed in their classification. These laws protect the local skilled workforce in Rhode Island from out-of-state contractors who might otherwise attempt to underbid their competition with low-wage out-of-state workers. Strong prevailing wage laws generate millions in local economic spending activity.

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Sherry Buchanan: Leave prevailing wage alone

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

OpEd Sherry Buchanon
4/9/18

Once again, Republicans are trying to repeal Missouri’s prevailing wage. This law protects standards for decent wages, guarantees a fair bidding process, and demands safety and quality for public projects. The Kansas City Star recently called repeal efforts “the political lunacy of advocating for middle-class wage cuts during an era of stagnation and rising inequality.”

Prevailing wage protections started in 1931 when the Davis-Bacon Act was signed by Republican President Herbert Hoover. The act came about after two congressmen teamed up to protect their states from contractors who were bringing in low-paid labor from Alabama to do work on taxpayer-funded projects. Not only did the congressmen object to displacing local labor, they also recognized that these migrant workers would not be long-term taxpayers, consumers and constituents. They recognized that paying the lowest wages was not good overall economics.

Missouri’s prevailing wage law requires workers, union or nonunion, to be paid set wages on taxpayer-funded projects such as schools, jails and bridges. Wage rates are determined county-by-county from voluntary annual wage reports submitted by contractors who work in those counties. Those who pay union rates and those who do not are included in the average. So essentially, the “prevailing wage” in each county is the local going rate for various types of labor.

Because trade unions have successfully bargained for higher compensation, and because union-skilled labor is preferred by many local private and public builders, local wages are higher than they might otherwise be.

…

I want public policy that protects workers’ ability to make living wages so they can pay taxes and be vigorous consumers, helping our businesses and economy to prosper in ways that are good for everyone, not just the rich. I want public policy that supports a fair bidding process for contractors and rewards contractors willing to do quality work. I want public policy that guarantees safe construction of schools, roads, county jails and bridges. I want policy that supports spending local taxes to pay local workers who, in turn, spend locally.

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New York State Reciprocal Debarment Legislation Signed into Law by Governor Cuomo

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

PRESS RELEASE GlobeNewswire
Dec. 22, 2017, 02:09 PM

On December 18, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law new reciprocal debarment legislation to amend labor and general municipal law, as it relates to reciprocity of debarments imposed under the federal Davis-Bacon Act. The bill states that any contractor debarred by the U.S. Department of Labor for violations of the Davis-Bacon Act cannot work on New York State public works projects. The statute will take effect in March 2018.

“This is an important new State law that ensures that contractors barred on the federal level from public works projects won’t have the ability to win new projects in the State of New York,” said John Ballantyne, NRCC’s Executive Secretary-Treasurer. “We’re pleased to support a law that ensures that hardworking men and women carpenters receive good pay and benefits from reputable, law-abiding companies in the State.”

…

“Unscrupulous contractors that violate workers’ rights don’t deserve to be rewarded with contracts paid for by hardworking taxpayers,” said Assemblymember Harry Bronson. “This law is a step in the right direction to help ensure that workers are protected from dishonest employers and our communities’ projects are completed by upstanding businesses that pay and treat their employees properly. Federal law, under the Davis-Bacon Act, dictates that contractors are prohibited from obtaining federal contracts if they’ve been debarred by the U.S. Department of Labor for wage payment violations. My legislation corrects a loophole in New York State law that allowed federally debarred contractors to still obtain state public works contracts. As a member of the Assembly Committee on Labor, I will continue to be an outspoken advocate for workers’ rights and continue to stand up for fair wages and vital protections.”

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Flawed System Lets Contractors Cheat Workers on Federal Building Jobs

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

AUG 21 2017, 4:58 AM ET
by MARYAM JAMEEL

This story was originally published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.

Like many buildings of its vintage, the century-old headquarters of the United States General Services Administration was once lined with asbestos.

The hazardous mineral, used for fireproofing, filled nearly a half-million square feet of the building on F Street in downtown Washington. It took more than a hundred licensed workers almost a year to pry out the substance during a renovation that began in 2011. The workers would log nightly nine-hour shifts, spent mostly in air-tight spaces that reached 100 degrees.

The pay for this grueling task was dictated by the Davis-Bacon Act, a 1931 law that promises specific wages and benefits for construction work on government buildings and infrastructure. The compensation set by the U.S. Department of Labor under the act, based on location and job duties, is often higher than what’s offered on private-sector projects.

Three workers on the GSA job who spoke to the Center for Public Integrity said their employer didn’t tell them what they were owed under the law. They and 124 others filed a complaint with the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division in 2011.

Investigators found in the workers’ favor, saying they should have earned $25.47 per hour including benefits, as skilled laborers, a specific category of employee under Davis-Bacon. Instead, their supervisors paid them $15.84 an hour and classified their work as general labor. Six years after the complaint was filed, the investigation remains open on appeal. The workers still haven’t gotten their back pay.

“You feel powerless,” said Luis Fonseca, one of the asbestos removal workers.

But in some ways, Fonseca and his former co-workers already have beaten the odds.

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US House Defends Davis-Bacon Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Washington, D.C. (July 14, 2017)

Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement today on the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote to reject the Gosar Amendment to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018:

The U.S. House of Representatives decisively rejected an attack on the Davis-Bacon Act with 51 Republican members and all Democratic members voting to defeat the Gosar Amendment.

Representative Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) amendment would have slashed the wages and benefits for Department of Defense construction projects by manipulating the calculation standard applied under the Davis-Bacon Act; adopting a new standard that would amount to massive cuts to paychecks and benefits.

The Davis-Bacon Act has kept public investment from undermining local wage and benefit standards for decades and Congress has consistently demonstrated their support for the act by rejecting attempts to weaken the Davis-Bacon Act.

LIUNA commends the U.S. House for their bi-partisan resolve in rejecting this cowardly attack on the livelihoods of working men and women.

(Visit LIUNA’s website)

Prevailing wage, project labor agreements protect living standards for construction workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By ROBBIE HUNTER
July 6, 2017 at 12:01 am

In an era of political hyperventilation, it might be a good idea for some critics to take a deep breath before they launch into their attacks on the prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements that protect the living standards of construction workers in California and across the nation.

From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, anti-union writers in recent weeks have incorrectly branded the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act that wrote the prevailing wage into the law on taxpayer-funded construction projects as born of racism and a rip-off of public funds. The same critics also have falsely characterized project labor agreements as costly to taxpayers and unfair to nonunion construction companies.

Now, for the facts.

Two Republican congressmen, Sen. James Davis of Pennsylvania and U.S. Rep. Roger Bacon of New York, sponsored their legislation 86 years ago to establish a minimum wage on taxpayer-funded construction projects, based on local measures of central tendency in any of the covered construction trades.

The idea behind the prevailing wage is to keep unscrupulous operators from low-bidding the legitimate competition to the detriment of the local workforce. The effect has been to allow blue-collar workers – 400,000 of whom are represented by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California – to maintain their place in the American middle class.

Of the false charges that have been lodged of late about Davis-Bacon, perhaps the most repugnant is the smear that recirculates every so often that the act originated as an outgrowth of racism. The critics troll through the historic record to quote some congressmen in the debate over Davis-Bacon who supported the law based on their own warped view that it was designed to protect higher-paid white workers in the northeast represented by the authors of the law from “cheap colored labor” that would be imported to their districts from the South. The critics fail, however, to report Congressman Bacon’s reply that imported workers came in white skin as well as black.

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Service Contract Act and Davis-Bacon Act Under Attack

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By David Madland and Karla Walter
Posted on June 27, 2017, 11:45 am

The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars annually contracting out goods and services, including building highways, employing janitorial services in federal office buildings, and hiring security at nuclear laboratories. Prevailing wage laws-such as the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act of 1965-help ensure that this spending does not drive down local wage and benefit standards; that businesses providing good jobs can compete; and that taxpayers get good value for their money.

Unfortunately, prevailing wage laws are under attack and could be repealed by this Congress. Several bills have been introduced to eliminate these long-standing laws, and reports indicate that these provisions could be attached to must-pass bills such as appropriations or defense authorization legislation. Despite his claims to be a pro-worker president, President Donald Trump has not committed to supporting these laws. Repealing prevailing wage laws would cut the wages of millions of workers and their families and ultimately cost taxpayers dearly.

The Davis-Bacon Act applies to workers on federally supported construction contracts, while the Service Contract Act applies to service workers on federal contracts. Both laws ensure that workers on government-funded projects are paid the going market rate-or the prevailing wage-based on surveys of wages and benefits for occupations in each local market. This helps standardize wages across an industry and ensures that government spending does not drive down market wages. In areas where there are a number of high-road firms-firms that treat their workers well-and market wages and benefits are high, the prevailing wage helps support good jobs. In areas where market wages are lower, the prevailing wage is also generally lower. Yet no matter the condition of the local labor market, prevailing wage laws help ensure that the federal government doesn’t undercut local standards.

Without these standards, the government purchasing process could cause wages in the market to spiral downward: This is because the government frequently awards contracts to the lowest bidder, which gives a natural advantage to those companies that pay their employees the least. This is especially true because of the federal government’s significant purchasing power. In many cases, the federal government is the largest buyer by far in the market, with the power to set the rate for goods, services, and labor. As a result, government spending could lower wages for workers throughout the private sector.

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Setting the Record Straight on the Davis-Bacon Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Sean McGarvey, Contributor
President – North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU)
06/21/2017 09:01 am ET

Once upon a time, conservative columnists like George Will could have been counted upon to offer thoughtful, reasoned and, most importantly, well-researched analysis on public policy issues.

Sadly, that academic approach to public policy debate has seemingly been forsaken, and Mr. Will’s recent column lambasting the federal Davis-Bacon Act as an inherently racist law is a case in point.

Furthermore, his unconscionable choice to elevate Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as an arbiter of intelligence on this issue, when the combative and isolated Congressman has proven himself over and over to be stunningly offensive, morally repugnant, disingenuous and completely fact-free when it comes to the issue of prevailing wage laws, is disappointing.

As a matter of historical record, Sen. James J. Davis (R-PA), Rep. Robert L. Bacon (R-NY) and countless others supported the enactment of the Davis-Bacon Act precisely because it would give protection to all workers, regardless of race or ethnicity.

The overwhelming legislative intent of the Act was clear: all construction workers, including minorities, are to be protected from abusive industry practices. Mandating the payment of local, “prevailing” wages on federally-funded construction projects not only stabilized local wage rates and labor standards for local wage earners and local contractors, but also prevented migratory contracting practices which treated African-American workers as exploitable indentured servants.

But rather than taking the time to understand the actual workings and characteristics of the U.S. construction industry as it exists today, along with the original intent of the Davis-Bacon Act which has evolved over the years to occupy an important role in preventing the erosion of community wage and benefit standards for minority workers, Mr. Will embraced an indolent approach that simply mimicked the talking points provided to him by the special interest groups who are leading the charge to repeal this important law.

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Like everything, construction projects are better with (Davis) Bacon

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

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.

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National Poll: Most Voters Support Prevailing Wage on Public Infrastructure Projects

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By SMART CITIES PREVAIL

“While voters may have disagreed on many issues this past November, they agree that prevailing wage laws should be preserved by a wide margin,” said pollster Brian Stryker. “Only 21% of voters want to eliminate prevailing wage laws-even after hearing a commonly referenced argument for doing so. And support for prevailing wage extends to large majorities of Democrats, Republicans, Independents and Trump voters.”

Construction is America’s fourth largest industry, and directly supports more than 6.6 million jobs. About a quarter of annual construction output, or $363 billion, is spent on government owned construction projects-including roads, bridges, schools, transit systems, water projects and municipal buildings.

Prevailing Wages are determined by surveys of existing market wage and benefit rates for skilled craft workers-such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, ironworkers, cement masons, heavy equipment operators and others-in more than 3,000 communities across America. The Davis Bacon Act requires prevailing wage on most federally funded construction projects while about thirty states have laws requiring prevailing wages on state or locally funded projects.

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(See Poll Summary)