AWF Opposes Davis-Bacon in Green School Construction Bill
The Alliance for Worker Freedom sent the following letter to Rep. McKeon, Rep. Miller, Rep. Boehner and Rep. Pelosi urging the removal of costly Davis-Bacon Act wage mandates in the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act. For more information about what the Davis-Bacon Act is, click here.
Dear Representative:
As you mark-up the substitute amendment to H.R. 2187, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act, on behalf of the Alliance for Worker Freedom, and millions of hardworking rank-and-file Americans and their families, I am urging you to oppose the costly prevailing wage mandates contained therein. These components increase the cost of school construction projects at the expense of the taxpayer by implementing a 1930’s wage subsidy law known as the Davis-Bacon Act.
Today, May 6th, members of the Education and Labor Committee are going to consider this type of dangerous legislation in H.R. 2187. Care must be taken to ensure that out-dated wage mandates are removed from this legislation before it leaves the Committee.
Applying Davis-Bacon prevailing wage mandates causes construction wages to become inflated nationally by 22 percent. However in some areas, such as Maine and South Carolina, construction wages are 15-55 percent below market wages due to prevailing wage laws. Also, forced compliance with these outdated mandates increase the cost of construction projects nationally by $8.6 billion – a cost that is passed on to the taxpayers. The difference between having a prevailing wage or not, is the difference between building three schools or four.
I am urging you to remove all forced prevailing wage requirements from this bill allowing school construction to not be hindered by compliance with an outdated wage mandate.
For more information on how these costly mandates negatively affect our economy, please visit www.workerfreedom.org/davis-bacon-research.
Sincerely,
Brian M. Johnson, MPA
Executive Director
cc: All U.S. House of Representative Members
