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By Tracy Emblem
August 23, 2009 (San Diego)--The federal prevailing wage law known as the Davis-Bacon Act was passed in 1931 after the Great Depression. In 1979, nine states repealed laws enforcing prevailing wages as a large-scale "deregulation" and "privatization" movement began in our country across all types of industries. This has not been beneficial to the public because the short term bottom line is more often valued over people and worker's wages.
In California, our prevailing wage law requires hourly rates and benefits to be paid at scale based on where the construction project is located. The law prevents the driving down of local wages and allows local union contractors to compete on a level playing field with non-union contractors. California's prevailing wage law encourages the hiring of skilled local workers and insures that there are skilled supervisory personnel on the job. Additionally, where prevailing wages are paid, training and job safety programs are more prevalent.
Prevailing wage laws do not drive up the cost of construction. A study comparing 391 school projects between 1991 and 2000 conducted by University of Utah's Chair of Economics, Dr. Peter Phillips, showed no statistical cost difference between schools built with and without a prevailing wage laws. Prevailing wage laws have no impact on "private" construction projects, but do prevent contractors from importing lower wage workers from other states to fill construction jobs intended for local residents and paid for by the taxpayers.
Recently the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that California's charter cities can avoid prevailing wage requirements. At a time when our cities are cash-strapped for revenue and people in our own communities need good paying jobs, cities should not hide behind their municipal charter and look only at the short-term bottom line because prevailing wages help build our local economies.
A simple premise supports the economic benefit of the prevailing wage law. When workers are paid prevailing wages, their income enters the stream of commerce. Workers who earn a livable wage in turn spend their income in our communities at restaurants, car dealers and other businesses. This generates income for our businesses and revenue for our cash-strapped local governments to pay for public services such as fire and libraries.
Cities should not look only at the bottom line. The Davis-Bacon law enacted 78 years ago makes good economic sense and has a broader economic impact. Consequently, we should insist that federal stimulus funding for our local construction projects stay in our communities at prevailing wages.
Tracy Emblem is an attorney and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress, California's 50th District. The opinions voiced in this editorial reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. If you wish to submit an editorial for consideration, please contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
Comments
Emblem 2010
Go Tracy!
I support this
Hi Tracy, I just learned about your campaign doing a google search for CA-50 candidates and I saw your name and I remembered you from the Larry King episode where you freed that innocent victim from prison. I fully support your race and if you need any volunteering from me my email is m_reyes55@rocketmail.com. As far as the ugly comments posted about prevailing wages, these republicans complain complain complain. "Waaahhhh, we don't want to pay taxes to improve lives wahhhh" and once again, they offer no solutions of their own. Bilbray is a lame-duck congressman and a Bush-crony. Open your minds and let's dig ourselves out of this problem!
Prevailing wages
"Prevailing wage laws do not drive up the cost of construction." ???? I beg to differ. We had a local project to drill a well. chose a local contractor, and found the prevailing wage requirement alone drove the cost to do the labor up considerably. Yes, the local wage earners made more on the project and likely spent more of the money esarned locally, but all of the money was from federal funded grants, so you and I as taxpayers paid for the increased costs. In this case, the contractor is non-union so unions have nothing to do with this increased expense.
On a related matter, it's always been a bit ironic to see how most government agencies must require the prevailing wages to be paid to their contractors, yet their own staff that does the same work doesn't get paid prevailing wage.
The Davis Bacon act may have had good intentions to start with but the prevailing wage laws need an overhaul unless we intend to keep paying outrageous wages to the private contractors and continue to drive up prices that the taxpayers must pay for.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1Prevailing Wages are a good thing!!!!!!!!!!!
Prevailing wages are a protection for us all. To often we find undocumented workers on construction sites and if we look deeper we find those workers are paid very low wages for work American's would love to be doing, but most American's can not afford to work for minimum wage in a construction job. Most of those who work in construction have families to support and the unions and prevailing wage laws protect those Americans. These are the jobs our sons and daughters who did not choose college can do and traditionally make a living wage doing.
Those who oppose prevailing wages are not poor business owners, but enterprises who simply do not care about the well being of there employees. They are greedy and will not put out a penny for wages or safety for that matter unless they are required to do so by law.
I might be willing to drop the Prevailing wage laws, if we enact mandatory jail time for employers who are caught with undocumented or falsely documented workers in there employ!
To You With Love on Prevailing Wages
Setting fair pay standards doesn't eliminate free enterprise, we have state and federal minimum wages to help stabilize the economy. With rampant outsourcing of American jobs by big corporations in conjunction with the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, we are in a pickle. We know that Reaganomics and trickle down doesn't work. So if stimulating the economy from the top down doesn't work, we have to grow the middle class and stimulate our economy from the bottom up. Unlike Bush's multi-millionaire friends who invest over seas or put it in the bank, working families spend their disposable incomes to stimulate the economy by supporting local businesses, paying their bills and fixing their homes. And guess what brainiac? The money still flows to the top and the rich get richer... but think of all the stops along the way it hits and how it makes OUR economy stronger. Anyone who does not want America to have a strong economy and be a leader of nations might be considered a TRAITOR. Please refer to your Patriot Act.
I don't understand the cheep wine comment. Does this mean that you prefer two buck chuck or that our society has abandoned our military veterans time and time again? We have a responsibility to those people who have bravely served and protected our country too. The only programs I know of that help transition our veteran soldiers into the civilian work force are privately funded... and by LABOR unions like Helmets to Hardhats and Veterans in Piping.
If the Devil done-it, I suggest you take a real look to see who exactly who that Devil is. And for all those union bashers out there, take a look at Upton Sinclair's Jungle. This is where corporate America and traitors in the Bush administration would have us be. Let me give you a clue. If you can't afford to buy your own island today, you'd probably be a meat packer or a prostitute.
By the way... I live in the 50th District and I support working families, labor unions and Tracy Emblem. Until you get a clue, you can stay in East County and enjoy Duncan D. and your mediocrity.
Prevailing wage law ?
Someone needs to explain how we can have a free enterprise system and at the same time have laws that tell businesses how much to pay someone? If we as a society can let our mentally ill drink cheep wine and live on the streets why do we need to subsidize our construction workers? Oh, wait a minute, my biggest failure, George W. Bush, says construction is one of the jobs american's wont do. Our world has gone totally NUTS!
David Denholm's Propaganda Machine
David Denholm's "public service" organization is a front for propaganda from the anti-union movement and has campaigned against teachers and other public sector employees for over three decades. His analysis of wages likely does not include benefits. Dr. Peter Phillips data, the Economics Chair from the University of Utah has more reliable data than Denholm.
Emblem disqualifies herself for public office
Ms Emblem performed an invaluable service with this commentary supporting prevailing wage. It's a cogent demonstration of her economic ignorance, and fortunately is now public record. Any political opponent would be wise to refer to it in public debate Ms. Emblem asserts that taxpayers paying bloated wages is beneficial to society. The fact that fewer roads, schools, affordable housing, libraries, etc. is built with our public funds is not deemed a problem by her. (Her inferred solution -- raise taxes!!) The fact that our infrastructure is falling into disrepair because the cost of repairs under prevailing wage are too high is not a problem either. Her core error in logic assumes that overpaying for a service results in economic gain for society -- an example of what economists call the "broken window fallacy." For a good explanation of this common misconception, go to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy Let me boil this flawed concept down to simple common sense. I come to you and take your money. I give your money to someone else and they spend it -- rather than YOU spending your money. How does that improve the wealth of the area? It doesn't. Nor is is just and fair for me to do so. But that's exactly what Ms. Emblem supports. Admittedly, this economic fallacy is quite commonly supported by Big Government advocates. They tell us that the more they take and distribute to their favored groups -- the more profitable such transfers are for us all. Truth is, it IS profitable -- for the recipients of the ill-gotten gains. And that in turn earns the politicians responsible for this economic redistribution the fervent political and financial support of those who receive the goodies (what economists call "rent seekers"). In this case, the rent seekers are more commonly referred to as labor unions.
"Disqualifies herself"?
Richard Rider,
Who do you want? Bilbray? Or let me guess you want Randy "Duke" Cunningham back right? I'm sick because I can't afford health care and tired of people like you that complain about taxes. Money doesn't come out of thin air.
prevailing wages
Tracy Emblem seems as confused about the history of prevailing wages as she is about their impact. The Davis-Bacon Act was enacted in 1931 but that certainly wasn't "after the Great Depression," which lasted until the beginning of World War II. It is also true that nine states have repealed their prevailing wage laws but that didn't happen in 1979. The first was repealed in 1979 and the others followed over many years.
Dr. Peter Phillips, who she cites as an expert on prevailing wages, has written several studies on the subject. Some of which have been thoroughly debunked. He seems to make a practice of uncritically accepting data on the subject from labor unions, which is later shown to be made of whole cloth. So far as I'm concerned, nothing he has to say about prevailing wages should be accepted as fact.
The big problem with prevailing wage laws is that so-called "prevailing wages" don't prevail. According to the latest information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey, only about 16 percent of construction workers in the Los Angeles Combined Metropolitan Statistical Area are union members. It is statistically impossible for union wages to be prevailing wages, but that's what the state says. And, there's no reason to believe that non union construction wages aren't "good paying jobs." The Davis-Bacon "prevailing wage" for a carpenter in Los Angeles County is $37.85 per hour. The office of Occupational Employment Statistics reports that the mean hourly wage for a highly skilled carpenter in Los Angeles County is $27.36. That gives you some idea of how protecting politically powerful unions ("leveling the playing field") is costing the taxpayers.
David Denholm
Public Service Research Foundation
david@psrf.org