Letter to the Editor
Published 10-27-05
Bush Executive Order Wrong for Gulf Coast
Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter becasue I want to urge all working men and women in this area to call or write letters to your congressman and U.S. senator to voice your opposition to an executive order issued by President George W. Bush on Sept. 8, 2005. Here are the reasons we should do this:
On Sept. 8, 2005, one day after a group of 35 Republican members of Congress requested him to do so, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that temporarily suspended the Davis Bacon Act. Known as the prevailing wage law, the order suspended it for areas of the Gulf Coast that were hit by Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005. These areas are south Alabama, south Mississippi and south Louisiana.
The Davis Bacon Act enacted in 1931 requires that building contractors who do work for the federal government must pay their workers no less than the wage rates prevailing in the local area for such craft as determined by the US Dept. of Labor.
Suspension of the Davis Bacon Act would do the following things for working men and women here on the Gulf coast: Drive down wages even further for a desperate group of workers washed out of their homes, out of their jobs, out of the world as they knew it.
Suspension of the essential protectors of the Davis Bacon Act for workers on the Gulf Coast will only salt the wounds of those workers devastated by Hurricane Katrina, by further lowering their wages and making it harder for needs famlies to get back on their feet.
Suspension also relaxes good quality work standards in the Gulf Coast rebuilding process. We simply cannot afford to cut corners as schools, homes and other buildings are rebuilt. The welfare of the children and our students who will return to those schools and live in those homes is at stake.
My message is pure and simple, suspension of the Davis Bacon Act for the Gulf Coast region is a slap in the face to the people of that region to say they should get paid bottom basemet wages, rather than reconstruction being a step up to a decent life for their families.
These are the reasons we as working men and women in this area need to call or write to your congressman and US senators to insist that they take the necessary steps to suspend this executive order issued by President Bush on Sept. 8, 2005.
Scott E. Lacey
Whistler, Alabama
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