The Department of Labor plans to reverse the neoliberal-era gutting of a law that stopped contractors from bidding down wages in federal procurement.
  • theodewere@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    raise the salaries of the lowest-paid workers on infrastructure ranging from highways and bridges to battery plants, hydrogen production facilities, and semiconductor fabs
    it would be a step toward shrinking the wage gap between Northern states, which have generally higher worker protections, and the South and Southwest, where contractors are more hostile to unions and reliant on a migrant workforce.

  • Hairyblue@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    Have the Republicans filed lawsuits on this to stop the government from helping people yet? Because that is what Republicans do.

    Stop voting for Republicans. They don’t want government helping us. They want government to fail.

    • AttackBunny@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, there are still multiple generations of people that have been brainwashed into thinking that unions are the devil, and people should stop whining, and just get a better job. Those same people don’t see how the modern job market has changed, in addition to the obvious issues with their beliefs. I remember all the propaganda when I was younger.

      Those same people also tend to rail against anything that offers THEM protections, like OSHA. It’s an uphill battle.

      @Hairyblue

      @tintory

  • Izzgo@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    Any chance of a copy/paste of the article? I don’t want to register with yet another source.

  • Dee@beehaw.org
    2·
    1 year ago

    This is great to see, the Biden admin has been doing a way better job than I thought they would going into the presidency. Still a long ways off from what I’d ideally want to see but moves like this are always welcome.

    • snooggums@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      They really need to work on getting that message out in a way that gets reported as click bait so it can complete with all the lies from the GOP. Being all formal and responsible gets ignored by the media and memes.

  • admiralteal@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    Rule changes like these are the only way to stop the race to the bottom that states like Texas are always winning. It’s why labor protection rules need to apply at the largest scale possible. City, county, and state rules aren’t good enough because the next municipality over is willing to skin babies to undercut you by 0.75%.

    Any mayor or governor who emphasizes how good they are for business is warning workers that their health, safety, and wages WILL be sacrificed on the alter of capitalism.

    • admiralteal@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Grossly simplified: Fed contractors must pay their workers the “prevailing wage” to have their bid accepted. Without a rule like this, a contractor can easily under-bid the competition – especially union competition – by reducing costs by paying their workers less than the prevailing wage.

      The rule change being rolled back was made by Regan back in the 80s. They used to determine prevailing wages by saying any wage at least 30% of workers in a region are making is prevailing (which at the time amounted to something like a 70th percentile wage), but Reagan changed it to be a majority. If there was no clear wage that was paid to this large a number of workers, you would instead determine an average wage, which after the rule change tended to be used most of the time. This meant one shady contractor underpaying their workers directly reduced the wages of these federal contract workers, since averages are now being used.

      Before the rule change, you would typically find a wage that at least a third of workers were earning in a region and that would be the minimum prevailing wage. It only took a few good employers (edit: or one decent trade union) to push that prevailing wage up. After the change, large and powerful employers could easily suppress the wage for their whole region by pushing down the average.

      • prole@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        Many states have their own prevailing wages for state-funded contracts, and if you live somewhere that actually gives a shit about its citizens, it’s very high.

        It makes for great investment in things like infrastructure when the government provides grants and low-interest loans, essentially free money, to local municipalities. They get the infrastructure, as well as all the local, well-paying jobs that the work brings.