Proclamation by the President: To Screw Workers
"Proclamation by the President: To Suspend Subchapter IV of Chapter 31 of Title 40, United States Code, Within a Limited Geographic Area in Response to Hurricane Katrina" offers this rationale for suspending the rule which says any contract for over $2,000.00 and "which requires or involves the employment of mechanics or laborers shall contain a provision stating the minimum wages to be paid various classes or laborers and mechanics.":
(b) The wage rates imposed by section 3142 of title 40, United States Code, increase the cost to the Federal Government of providing Federal assistance to these areas.
So let's get this straight.
Bush and Rove have no problem giving
no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other connected firms, such as Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary with former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh as the money-tree shaker.Meanwhile, how high could the prevailing wage be for various classes of laborers and mechanics? How much lower can it go if so many laborers were already among the working poor and are hardest hit because they lacked the financial resources to get out of harm's way or to rebuild?
So Bush's cronies get rich and the government can afford that. But it can't afford to pay out-of-work laborers what was already a low prevailing wage?
This is how Bush wants to address poverty, by underpaying laborers who are already barely making it?
