Prevailing wage
as a
union practical joke
By David
Denholm
There's a story
that the Irish invented the bagpipe to keep wolves away from
their flocks and then as a practical joke told the Scots it
was a musical instrument.
Immigrants seeking work
might feel the same way about the provision in the immigration
reform bill in the Senate, S. 2611, mandating prevailing wages
for newly documented (H-2C) immigrant workers. It wouldn't be
quite fair to say they tried to hide it but in defining the
"prevailing wage" required by the bill rather than refer to
the better well known Davis-Bacon Act, the bill merely refers
to subchapter IV of Chapter 31 of Title 40, United States Code
without mentioning that is the Davis-Bacon Act. This little
attempted subterfuge is made noticeable because it goes on to
say in the same sentence "or the Service Contract Act of 1965
(41 U.S.C. 351 et seq.)..." Perhaps the very words
"Davis-Bacon Act" are developing a bit of an foul odor.
Just in case you didn't get
the joke, the unions are so gung ho for immigration reform
they have a provision in the bill making it unlikely that the
immigrants will find work.
That reminds me of an
editorial cartoon from the 60's when the Nixon Administration
instituted the "Philadelphia Plan" to force the construction
unions to integrate. The picture was of a very large white
construction workers strangling a rather small black
construction worker with a hammer lock around his neck. The
caption read, "I love him like a brother."
For those of you unfamiliar
with it, the Davis-Bacon Act is a prevailing wage law under
which the Department of Labor dictates the wages to be paid on
federally financed construction projects. The wages are
notoriously set to accommodate union interests. The problem is
the process and motivation. Davis-Bacon wage rates are
determined by replies to a voluntary survey. Union contractors
have an extremely high level of motivation to respond to the
survey. Nonunion contractors have a low, and sometimes
negative, level of motivation. As a result, even though
according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, only about 13 percent of construction workers are
union members the Department of Labor all too frequently
determines that union scale is the prevailing wage.
It doesn't have to be this
way. The Department of Labor also keeps track of prevailing
wages for immigrant labor certifications. Those "prevailing
wages" are often quite different from the Davis-Bacon
determinations.
For example, the DOL's
Davis-Bacon prevailing wage determination for a plumber in
Springfield, Massachusetts is $32.54 plus $16.73 in fringe
benefits. The DOL's Employment and Training Administration's
prevailing wage determination lists wages four skill levels of
plumbers ranging from $15.41 to $24.81. In other words, the
Davis-Bacon wage is 30 percent higher than what is more likely
to be the true prevailing wage for the most highly skilled
plumber. That's not an isolated example. In Portland, Oregon
the Davis-Bacon wage for a carpenter is $28.41 plus $11.16 in
fringes while the other prevailing wage ranges from $11.80 to
$24.06. In San Diego, California the Davis-Bacon wage for an
electrician is $36.51 plus 3.75% of that and $10.03 in fringes
while the other prevailing wage ranges from $13.74 to $24.35.
So, imagine yourself as an
immigrant seeking work as a carpenter in Portland. If your
potential employer isn't a union contractor, and more than 90
percent of them are not, to offer you a job he will have to
pay $28.41 as opposed to the somewhere between $11.80 and
$24.06 he is paying his other employees. Your chances of
getting a job are nada.
Is that a practical joke or
just "tough love" union style?
David Denholm is the
president of the Public Service Research Foundation, an
independent, nonprofit organization that studies union
influence on public policy.
