Thursday, 12 January 2017

The Word On Davis Bacon Construction Projects

By Frank Collins


The controversy surrounding labor wages has necessitated the creation of more enlightened laws. One such law was passed in the year 1931, which regulated wages for labor contracted to work on government construction works. The main provision of the act was for contractors to give the prevailing standard pay to construction laborers and mechanics in their employ.

Nowadays, the bill is still in use for HUD, the department that addresses mass housing in cities and other places. Construction outfits do not have much use for Davis Bacon projects and avoid them because of they are not good for their income statements. The act has been the center of raging debates on how salaries are supposed to be set up under the law.

The bill also has a section for a thing called Related Acts, which ideally should ably support the companies contracted by HUD. This support is in the form of financial assistance but mostly bureaucracy moves slowly in dispensing this, so that contractors need to cover themselves when contracted for a project. The Acts should take care of some perks for contractors.

Families that could not afford private housing often have recourse to the low income projects made under the bill. But then, the participating companies have often made substandard installations to save on costs to fulfill their need to pay their workers well. However, their workers still have much the same problems of making ends meet today compared to earlier times.

Government guarantees or underwrites a failed system of providing affordable housing to income earners in the lower brackets. Today, a lot of people who are beneficiaries of this system still take the housing units that are offered. The choice is to spend more on much better built apartments or homes.

The country has not been known to be strong in delivering social systems that address basic needs for citizens. The Davis Bacon act has become a very heavy load for administrations that need to progress from it. For times that are touted to more progressive, it is an archaic law that has made government unpopular and top heavy.

The HUD is something that many people need, but it does not really fulfill its mission because of the act. The substandard houses are a bane that poorer people accept because they have no alternatives. When leaks, repairs and improvements need to be done, they will have to make do with what they can afford.

The GAO in 1979 made a report in relation to the bill and how it is no longer serviceable and needs to be repealed. There are several stated causes, but all of these were based on critical analysis of services. It did not mention how the act has become a way to discriminate against African Americans.

States across the country have also passed their own Little Davis Bacon laws. But then, these are more politically colored decisions that are constantly being blocked any which way through litigious legislation. Ultimately, the government and legislature need to come up to terms for a better kind of law to take effect.




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