Bush suspends minimum wage protection in disaster areas.

[esskreemr]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050908-7.html

Pelosi's response:

The Davis-Bacon Act was signed into law in the Great Depression, a time when scurrilous employers were taking advantage of the desperation of American workers to care for their families. At that time, and for more than 70 years since then, the federal government has demanded that when taxpayer money is spent, workers should be paid a livable wage.

"But today, the Bush Administration demonstrated the latest example of its anti-worker agenda, with an executive order rescinding the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act for areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. That means that as workers return to their lives and livelihoods on the Gulf Coast, the Bush Administration wants to use federal money to exploit them by paying less than the prevailing wage.

"It's this simple: Hurricane Katrina took away their jobs, now President Bush will take away their wages when they find new jobs. This is a partisan and punitive decision that will make economic recovery much hard for workers and their families.

"Now is a time to come together to rebuild and restore, not undo years of hard-won workers rights. Democrats call on President Bush to immediately rescind this order, so that American families can get on with the hard work of rebuilding their lives."

[Have At You]

It is well-known that minimum wage restrictions reduce the demand for labor when the minimum wage (plus attached payroll taxes and other employer payments) is greater than the market value of an hour's worth of unskilled labor.

Eliminating the minimum wage is the most effective way to increase the number of available jobs, to deal with the sudden influx of unemployed labor that the local economies could not otherwise absorb.

It is all very well to gripe and moan that it is unfair to those workers to remove the minimum wage protection. But I think they'd prefer to be working for the market value of their labor and contributing to the growth of the community, rather than be out of work because there are not enough jobs to go around.

[Larrison]

I'll agree with Have At You here as well. I'd rather have people working than not, and its pretty well known the minimum wage act does decrease the number of jobs available, particularly low skills jobs such as post-disaster cleanup. I'd rather have people having the opportunity to make a few bucks in the short term, than restricting the ability to people to generate jobs for them.

Do I see the minimum wage act being suspended for a long time? No.. But right now, there are lots of people looking for a way to generate cash in hand in the short term. And there is a lot of short-term, low skills work needed in clean up.

Once things get cleaned up and businesses operating, so that there is a bit more competition for the labor, wages will have to go up and it'll be appropriate to put the minumum wage law back in effect.

[grotto]

so cleaning up potentially toxic guck is not even worth $5.15!!!!! an hour. I understand the logic you both are using. This sort of thing will drive people to the welfare lines in droves. (in my opinion) Sounds more like the Gov. is looking for labor on the cheap. I wonder if the fed / State will remove income tax, fuel tax, sales tax etc. to help those who are working for "less than minimum wage" actually be able to spend it on something....

[Philistine]

This isn't the minimum wage act (actually the Fair Labor Standards Act) of $5.15 an hour.

This is the requirement that in contracts with the Federal Government for "construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating, of public buildings and public works of the Government" the contracts shall "contain a provision stating the minimum wages to be paid various classes of laborers and mechanics." Those minimum wages (called prevailing wages) are much higher than the miminum wage of $5.15 an hour.

40 U.S.C. 3142.

The act has a provision which says "The President may suspend the provisions of this subchapter during a national emergency."

40 U.S.C. 3147

--Philistine

[noodle]

double edged sword.
hopefully this will be handled correctly.

[foildad]

This isn't the minimum wage act (actually the Fair Labor Standards Act) of $5.15 an hour.

This is the requirement that in contracts with the Federal Government for "construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating, of public buildings and public works of the Government" the contracts shall "contain a provision stating the minimum wages to be paid various classes of laborers and mechanics." Those minimum wages (called prevailing wages) are much higher than the miminum wage of $5.15 an hour.

--Philistine

In Jefferson County, Louisiana representative current Davis-Bacon wages plus fringes are:

laborer: $10.60
painter $19.20
plumber $25.52

These so-called "prevailing wages" are well above the minimum wage and are in fact higher than actual market rates. As discussed above, forcing employers to pay above market wages discourages firms from hiring workers.

I just hope the relief money doesn't all end up in Halliburton's accounts.

[Slim]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050908-7.html

Pelosi's response:

This response is nothing more than her trying to score points with union officials rather than trying to help solve a problem. If she thought that she could have helped stop or reverse this decision, she would have remained silent.

Prevailing wage is nothing more than a union protection tool used to try and ensure that unions remain somewhat competitive with non-union labor. Beacuse they cant compete otherwise.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

This isn't the minimum wage act (actually the Fair Labor Standards Act) of $5.15 an hour.

This is the requirement that in contracts with the Federal Government for "construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating, of public buildings and public works of the Government" the contracts shall "contain a provision stating the minimum wages to be paid various classes of laborers and mechanics." Those minimum wages (called prevailing wages) are much higher than the miminum wage of $5.15 an hour.

40 U.S.C. 3142.

The act has a provision which says "The President may suspend the provisions of this subchapter during a national emergency."

40 U.S.C. 3147

--Philistine

So... is "national emergency" defined in any meaningful way, or is it "When the Prez feels like it"?

BTW: over here, the is no legally set minimum wage. However, unskilled labor works for considerably more than 5.15$/hour (pretax) here. It does help that about 90% of the blue-collar workforce is unionized in one union, and among the members of that union one finds several members of the government.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Slim]

Hi!


So... is "national emergency" defined in any meaningful way, or is it "When the Prez feels like it"?

Peter Gustafsson

It's via an executive order made by the president. Declaration of national emergency is also made by the president. Certain powers are granted exclusively to the president, especially those required to respond during times of crisis. So, I guess the answer to your question is, yes, when the Prez feels like it.

[YankeeRebel]

"Prevailing wage is nothing more than a union protection tool used to try and ensure that unions remain somewhat competitive with non-union labor. Beacuse they cant compete otherwise."

"Prevailing wage" protects all workers. It prevents employers from bringing in cheaper labor from outside the area and paying them a lower wage than the normal rate. Even non-union labor benefits from the enforcement of Davis-Bacon.

[Have At You]

[I]Even non-union labor benefits from the enforcement of Davis-Bacon.

At the expense of the taxpayer, who is forced to pay a higher-than-market-rate price for government projects.

(on top of the other uneconomic costs of all the layers of government bureaucracy created to ensure that the citizen's tax dollars are spent wisely)

[oso97]

At the expense of the taxpayer, who is forced to pay a higher-than-market-rate price for government projects.

(on top of the other uneconomic costs of all the layers of government bureaucracy created to ensure that the citizen's tax dollars are spent wisely)

Only if you accept the postulate that government exists merely to keep everyone in their place (Traditional conservative thinking). I like to think that we organize our society along rather different lines. Something that follows back to the REAL Christian principles of what our nation was founded upon (as opposed to hypocritical dreck of the so-called "Religious Right") of helping each other and sacrificing for one's fellow human being.

I quote in its entirety the following editorial. Original text available here.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/2005091...edinneworleans

NEW YORK -- The 40th president of the United States,
Ronald Reagan, began his tenure by declaring: "In this crisis, government is not the solution, government is the problem ..."

He must have been thinking about what would happen if New Orleans were flooded, and the streets were filled with bodies rotting away in the sun and poisoning what was once the city's water supply. Government was the problem, all right. It was incompetent from the lowest levels to the highest. For reasons that will be debated for a long time, government could not do its first job: protecting the lives and property of its citizens.

In a way, Reagan, or the memory of him, was part of the problem. Much of government in the richest country in the world is in the hands of his ideological children. The impact of his anti-government rhetoric, the dumbing-down of America, was so great that even his political adversaries were forced to emulate him. "The era of big government is over," proclaimed one of his successors, a Democrat, Bill Clinton. It certainly seemed that way when the trapped and hungry and sick people of New Orleans and Mississippi were left to howl in anger and die alone as the government flew over them in giant jets and military helicopters.

The president himself, seeing the bloating bodies of his citizens abandoned by government in dark waters, immediately understood, so he said, that the problem was "bureaucracy." Sir, the problem was you and your ilk.

George W. Bush, a child of the anti-government, had heard and said for so long that government was the enemy, that government could not be trusted, he was unwilling or unable to use its power to save its citizens before it was too late. He is doing the same thing in Iraq, where he is unwilling to give young men and women wearing the government's uniforms on his orders the reinforcements and equipment they need to survive, much less prevail, in a war they cannot win.

The tragedies in New Orleans and Baghdad are both tragedies of stunted minds who do not believe in the capacity of the people of the nation organized as government. The stupidity of anti-government bias was dramatized a week after the waters came in biblical force. The pilots of two Navy helicopters were reprimanded for acting as if they were big brotherly government by rescuing more than a hundred people when their orders specified that their only mission was to deliver food and water to other military personnel.

Twenty years ago, when one of my children graduated from Cornell University, I was struck by the words of the university's president, Frank H.T. Rhodes, which I remember as: "Don't let anyone tell you that the world doesn't owe you a living. It does. That is why we organized it."

Governments are the organizations of the world, in the American model owing people life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. More people than we know in Louisiana and Mississippi lost all that because government failed them.

Big government may not always be the solution, but the idea of organized collective action is not the problem this time. The problem was that the people running the country have been bashing government for so long that they have lost sight of the purpose of organization. Government is about a great deal more than trying to remake Iraq in our own image.

Government is about providing and enforcing law, about delivering order and security from the forces of hostile peoples and the powers of nature. Government is about offering fairness and justice and the right of appeal to the poorest and meekest of us. It owes us a living, which I would define as providing education, the blessings of public health, and rational management of land and water and the other natural resources of this rich place of ours.

Many of the dead people floating along the edges of the Gulf of Mexico right now are there because the people running the government hate government and, worse, do not understand the idea and obligations of government. We are a lesser people because of that -- and the whole world is watching.

[Slim]

Absolute crap. Sorry to seem so dismissive, there is so much blather that I cant address it all. But, most notably:

"Twenty years ago, when one of my children graduated from Cornell University, I was struck by the words of the university's president, Frank H.T. Rhodes, which I remember as: "Don't let anyone tell you that the world doesn't owe you a living. It does. That is why we organized it."
"

This spokesman for an elitest institiue of higher education is completely sheltered from reality. We are not a socialist society.

Most of the people floating in the water are there due to a corrupt and inept Mayor of New Orleans. It's that simple.

[Slim]

To shed some light on where oso is coming from (a dangerous place in my opinion), here is a link to the person he quotes in his tag line:

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/zapata.html

Zapata's ideologies were base in communism and socalism. And Oso has clearly been studying them.

[YankeeRebel]

"At the expense of the taxpayer, who is forced to pay a higher-than-market-rate price for government projects."

Well, if the goal is to get the most bang for the taxpayer's buck, then the ultimate "solution" to this scenario is to throw open the doors to illegal immigrants who are willing to do the same jobs at dirt-cheap wages. Maximum bang for the least bucks, right?

Meanwhile, Mr. American Taxpayer sits at home unemployed because he cannot afford to earn a living by competing with dirt-cheap labor.

I can appreciate the desire to get the most bang for the buck, but at the same time, I can't stand watching Americans fighting for the lowest wage. Earning less and saving less is not the road to prosperity. It's also not the formula for a healthy, robust economy.

[oso97]

To shed some light on where oso is coming from (a dangerous place in my opinion), here is a link to the person he quotes in his tag line:

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/zapata.html

Zapata's ideologies were base in communism and socalism. And Oso has clearly been studying them.

Actually, my tagline has nothing to do at all with the political philosophy of Zapata. The two statements of the tagline interplay with each other and refer to something in my personal life that is, quite frankly, none of your business.

But, since you bring up the topic - what do you have against a society where people organize institutions to take care of each other in bad times? Or is it only when these institutions take on the name of "government" that you have a problem?

[Slim]

Actually, my tagline has nothing to do at all with the political philosophy of Zapata. The two statements of the tagline interplay with each other and refer to something in my personal life that is, quite frankly, none of your business.

But, since you bring up the topic - what do you have against a society where people organize institutions to take care of each other in bad times? Or is it only when these institutions take on the name of "government" that you have a problem?

I agree the tagline doesnt. The person you are quoting certainly does, and whether you realize it or not, you're pushing some of his philosophy.

I have no problem with charitable organizations. I give to the Red Cross and Salvation Army, they do fine. I DO have a problem with organizations forcibly extracting money from me (taxes) and deciding how, when and where they want to "help".

[oso97]

Then perhaps you should move to a island in the south pacific where you can be alone. After all, you don't need paved streets, or a police force. Certainly not fire protection. No form of healthcare at all, and certainly not anything that came from taxpayer funds, you know, like any vaccenes that are developed, or pharmacuticals. And I doubt you would want a military to protect the shores of your island, and keep anyone from taking you over. And when the big wave comes and swamps your island, or you contract jungle fever, or a criminal lands on your island, or an invading army comes in, or you have a bad harvest and starve ... you can die alone, comforted in the thought that you paid no taxes and no society was neccessary to support you.

[YankeeRebel]

"I DO have a problem with organizations forcibly extracting money from me (taxes) and deciding how, when and where they want to 'help'."

You do have choices if taxes are such an abomination to you. Last time I checked, Saudi Arabia doesn't have an income tax because its government is paid for by all that black gold oozing from the ground. No "forcible extraction" there.

The fact is, if you choose to remain in America (where we do have taxes), then that is your decision. If you don't like it, you have nobody to blame but yourself.