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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)

The truth about the Davis-Bacon Act

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Letters to the Editor – Opinion
June 25 at 7:42 PM

George F. Will’s hit piece on the Davis-Bacon Act, “To create, destroy this law” [op-ed, June 18], was hardly surprising from a columnist who once wrote “the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0.”

We take issue with the absurd myth Mr. Will recycled about the intention of the law. As other right-wing ideologues have done, Mr. Will used an 85-year-old quote from Rep. William Upshaw (D-Ga.) to support his charge of racism but neglected to share the response by Rep. Robert Bacon (R-N.Y.) – one of the act’s namesakes – which refutes Upshaw’s comments and shows the Davis-Bacon Act was meant to address the concern that without any wage standards public construction was driving down wages for both white and black workers.

The truth is that the Davis-Bacon Act simply requires payment of “prevailing” wages and benefits when federal money is used for construction projects. These standards have kept public investment from undermining local standards for decades.

The politicians and policy hacks pushing to repeal Davis-Bacon are eager to distract us with baseless charges because if they reveal their true aim – to eliminate all wage and benefit standards – they will have no support.

Terry O’Sullivan, Washington
The writer is general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

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