Why is the administration suspending wage laws in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?

On Sept. 8, the day after receiving a letter from 34 House Republicans urging him to do so, President George W. Bush signed an executive order suspending the 74-year old Davis-Bacon Act in areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Davis-Bacon guarantees prevailing wages to workers on government-funded construction projects. The president has now allowed for federal contractors who, in many if not most cases are granted Hurricane Katrina reconstruction contracts on a no-bid basis, to pay substandard wages to the folks they hire to rebuild their devastated communities.

This is an outrage. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the repeal of Davis-Bacon represents “a double tragedy, it would allow the destruction of Hurricane Katrina to depress living standards even further. Taking advantage of a national tragedy to get rid of protection for workers the corporate backers of the White House have long wanted to remove is nothing less than profiteering.”

Now the government is looking for a way around minimum wage laws for service workers, as guaranteed for government-contracted work through the Service Contract Act.

The ostensible purpose is to save money on reconstruction, but no one is suggesting companies limit their profits. These government contracts are lucrative for the companies they are awarded to. No one is claiming wage protection is needed because the corporate contractors are performing their work for cents on the dollar.

The day after Bush suspended the wage provisions, on Sept. 9, FEMA awarded Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Haliburton, Inc. (formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney) a $29.8 million contract to rebuild Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi. This despite the fact that Haliburton, which has earned more than $9 billion in Iraq, is currently being investigated for more than $1 billion in “questioned” costs and $422 million in “unsupported costs,” according to a Reuters report on Pentagon audits released by Democrats in June.

Two other contracts, each in excess of $100 million dollars, were recently awarded to a Baton Rouge, La.-based company called The Shaw Group. All three companies employ as their chief lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, former FEMA director and Bush national campaign manager.

Our president wants us to believe and we want to believe he is managing this disaster in the best interest of its victims and our country as a whole. If his actions are to speak louder than his words, we must let him know that the American people, regardless of party affiliation, will not tolerate kowtowing and cronyism. Contact your federal and local leaders and urge them to rescind the suspension of Davis-Bacon. Stay informed and involved. Estimates for reconstruction run as high as $200 billion. To whom will this money go? We mustn’t let “business as usual” be the rule of law amidst the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.