Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Conservatives Enjoying Construction Union Wage Cut Slipped Into The Budget

We'll let the Wisconsin Club For Growth's Wednesday e-newsletter say it its own words:

Prevailing Outrage 

One of the more important things the Joint Finance Committee did in its version of the state budget bill has flown pretty much under the radar.  Little notice was taken of the provision that eliminates a requirement that construction companies pay prevailing wage on any project where tax dollars are involved.

It rated a few brief paragraphs in The Daily Reporter, a Milwaukee-based construction industry paper.

The Reporter identifies the provision targeted for repeal as “a 2009 law” that requires payment of the hourly wage most commonly paid for similar labor in a given locality. 

Prevailing wage traces its unsavory lineage to the federal Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, designed to reserve public works jobs for union members.  Its other consequences include the artificial inflation of the labor costs for any public works project.

3 comments:

Dom Noth said...

Jim, you may also like seeing thins one. Dom

Between courts, political operatives and media, Wisconsin has enough bad actors to last a lifetime http://tinyurl.com/3blfb7q

Anonymous said...

So we are no longer going to have to grossly overpay on publically financed contruction project?

Awesome!!!

Thx for the heads up James.

Anonymous said...

We need more newspapers and radio stations to start providing "Labor News." The Unions should be demanding this.