Labor Citizen

DAVIS-BACON
It's Meaning To The Building Trades And Organized Labor

The Davis-Bacon Federal prevailing wage principle was adopted by Congress in 1931 as its public policy in the expenditure of funds. Davis-Bacon provides that where Federal Funds are expended on construction, contractors doing that construction shall pay the prevailing wage scale in the area. The union wage scale is accepted as the normal scale.

This means that fair contractors, recognizing local wage conditions built up as a result of private collective bargaining through the years, can employ local labor and still compete in bidding for projects on a competitive level. It prevents the exploitation of craftsmen by maintaining the local wage structure. It eliminates the importation of cheap labor. In other words, if a contractor in an area where carpenters are paid $3.25 per hour bids on a construction job and gets it, he must pay his carpenters not less than $3.25 per hour. If there were no Davis-Bacon provision, he could import scab carpenters and pay them $1.00 per hour and make a fat profit on the deal.

The Federal Government is starting a $51 billion dollar road program. On April 27th, the House of Representatives passed the Highway Bill and included in it the Davis-Bacon Provision. This means that building tradesmen will benefit as will the rest of the public from improved roads. Secondly, this will mean about 151,000 more jobs per
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Davis-Bacon
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year for the Trades.

Thirdly, and most important, Davis-Bacon will mean that the wage rates of Tradesmen will be protected.

This was not done easily.

Powerful lobby groups for Contractors Associations fought tooth and nail to keep Davis-Bacon out of Federal Construction bills.

Davis-Bacon was fought out in the house 5 times in the past 16 months. Substitute bills not including Davis-Bacon were offered and defeated after bitter debate.

Davis-Bacon is not automatically included in Federal Projects but must be voted upon in each individual case. The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Council constantly calls to the attention of Congressmen and Senators the fact that the provision does not raise wages but does prevent wage cutting and it is wage cutting and labor standards lowering that we wish to prevent.

All organized labor has a vital stake in seeing that Davis-Bacon provisions are included in every project using federal funds. The way to do this is to keep after your representatives in Congress, both Democrat and Republican so that they can be well informed on the need for this healthful legislation.

In Florida, says the Building and Construction Trades Bulletin, only Representative Charles Bennett of Jacksonville publicly spoke on the Floor of the House in favor of Davis-Bacon.

The Building Trades Bulletin says, "This Department knows pretty well who are friends and who are enemies and we have long and good memories. We will remember President Gompers' political axiom, 'Reward our friends and punish our enemies', when the time for elections rolls around."