From The Wall Street Journal, an editorial, “Procuring the Union Agenda“:

In a novel variation on pay to play, the Obama Administration is planning to force companies to raise pay and benefits for workers if they want continued access to federal contracts. Waiting to cash in on the impending Executive Order are unions that would end up with a piece of the government’s $500 billion in annual contracts.

The government can’t steer contracts directly to the unions. But it can use its authority over how taxpayer money is spent to favor unions and their agenda. This is good news for Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union. But not so good for job creation.

The proposed Executive Order is being drawn up by Joe Biden’s Middle Class Task Force. It would oblige government procurement agencies to give contracts to “responsible contractors” who pay workers well and offer higher health, pension, sick leave and other benefits.

The Journal argues that this scheme, enforced by “labor commissars” at each federal agency, would especially disadvantage small businesses unable to offer the full range of benefits larger companies can achieve.

Associated Builders and Contractors, representing companies painfully familiar with Davis-Bacon and project labor agreements, issued a news release last week in response to reports about the “high road contracting policy.” In it, ABC’s Geoff Burr, vice president of federal affairs, said:

The provisions outlined in media reports – as well as in documents from the Center for American Progress, big labor and other special interest groups promoting this policy – fly in the face of free and open competition.

Large and small nonunion construction contractors and their skilled employees – which make up more than 85 percent of the U.S. construction workforce – are the backbone of America’s construction industry. These hardworking men and women have a decades-long track record of meeting and exceeding existing government-determined wage and benefit laws, such as the Davis-Bacon Act, and contracting standards in the best-value evaluation process unique to the federal government’s procurement of construction services.

The proposal is baffling given the Administration’s stated emphasis on jobs creation. As Burr notes, the U.S. construction industry already suffers from an unemployment rate of 24.7 percent. Why would you increase costs on this important sector of the economy?

Mickey Kaus, “Unions Are Crippling Obama–Exhibit A”:

Unions vs. stimulation: The home “weatherization” jobs in the stimulus bill were subjected to Davis-Bacon wage regulations–a favorite of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department–under which federal Labor Department officials establish “prevailing wage” rates that must be paid. Why do unions like this system? Because the “prevailing wages” are determined in a way that guarantees they are usually more than the actual market wage, sometimes by large margins.  All that finagling takes a certain amount of bureaucracy, however–and time. ABC’s Jonathan Karl:

According to the GAO report, the Department of Labor spent most of last year trying to determine the prevailing wage is for weatherization work, a determination that had to be made for each of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States. [E.A.]

As a result, the Department of Energy apparently weatherized only 22,000 homes under the program. Another pre-existing program, which doesn’t have to comply with Davis-Bacon, appears to have weatherized about 100,000 homes, if my math is right.

That’s OK. It’s not as if speed was important last year in terms of putting people to work. … Oh wait, it was.

L.A. Times, “Top of the Ticket” blog, “Obama’s federal government can weatherize your home for only $57,362 each.” The Department of Energy has since pushed back against the GAO report discussed. That report is euphemistically entitled, “Recovery Act: Project Selection and Starts Are Influenced by Certain Federal Requirements and Other Factors.”

Now that the full bill is available in a searchable form, there’s much of interest. From page 1024 of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and when we say “security” we really mean for the labor unions:

SEC. 338. DAVIS-BACON COMPLIANCE.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law and in a manner consistent with other provisions in this Act, to receive emission allowances or funding under this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, the recipient shall provide reasonable assurances that all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors and subcontractors on projects funded directly by or assisted in whole or in part by and through the Federal Government pursuant to this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, or by any entity established in accordance with this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, including the Carbon Storage Research Corporation, will be paid wages at rates not less than those prevailing on projects of a character similar in the locality as determined by the Secretary of Labor in accordance with subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code (commonly known as the ‘‘Davis-Bacon Act’’). With respect to the labor standards specified in this section, the Secretary of Labor shall have the authority and functions set forth in Reorganization Plan Numbered 14 of 1950 (64 Stat. 1267; 5 U.S.C. App.) and section 3145 of title 40, United States Code.

In a world where the federal government is parceling out favors according to your carbon dioxide emissions, this section embraces pretty pretty much everything in the world of manufacturing, energy production, and construction.

Well, except for homes and apartment buildings. There’s an exemption for them.

But otherwise, this bill would represent the great single expansion of the prevailing wage’s hold over the U.S. economy since President Hoover signed the Davis-Bacon Act into law in 1931. (Passage then was viewed as a way to keep lower-priced black and immigrant laborers from competing with white workers. The law still disadvantages minority employees.)

Isn’t it strange to see the demonized Herbert Hoover in such favor with the cap-and-trade-and-command-and-control supporters in Congress?

From page 78 of the manager’s amendment, concerning state revolving loan funds for small- and medium-sized manufacturers.

(F) COMPLIANCE WITH WAGE RATE REQUIREMENTS.-Each recipient of a loan shall undertake and agree to incorporate or cause to be incorporated into all contracts for construction, alteration or repair, which are paid for in whole or in part with funds obtained pursuant to such loan, a requirement that all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors and subcontractors performing construction, alteration or repair shall be paid wages at rates not less than those determined by the Secretary of Labor, in accordance with subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code (known as the ‘Davis-Bacon Act’), to be prevailing for the corresponding classes of laborers and mechanics employed on projects of a character similar to the contract work in the same locality in which the work is to be performed.

The Secretary of Labor shall have, with respect to the labor standards specified in this subparagraph, the authority and functions set forth in Reorganization Plan Numbered 14 of 1950 (15 F.R. 3176; 64 Stat. 1267) and section 3145 of title 40, United States Code.

So that’s one of organized labor’s rewards in the bill, the spreading of above-market wage rates to smaller manufacturers.

(UPDATE) (11:30 a.m.): Ivan Osorio at the Competitive Enterprise Institute adds:

Davis-Bacon-like provisions of this sort also make it more difficult for non-union companies to compete for bids. This results in higher costs, which are paid for by taxpayers.

With their share of the private sector work force declining to around 8 percent, unions need such alliances with environmentalists to gain political goods like this. Expect to see more of this.

From Mickey Kaus, the reform-minded Democratic columnist, blogger, card-check observer:

‘Employee Free Choice’ Still on the Move! Yet another Democratic Senator, Michael Bennet of Colorado, declares “card check” unpassable. He also calls it an impediment to enacting health care reform–a potentially convenient “frame” for other wobbly Dems, Greg Sargent notes. … P.S.: At some point doesn’t the near-stampede of moderate Democrats to renounce the unions’ top agenda item cut into labor’s leverage when it comes to negotiating a compromise? Just asking! These Dems are defying labor. Are they paying a big price for it, or do they know labor needs them as much as they need labor? Lesson learned? … P.P.S.: Didn’t Robert Reich try to warn Andy Stern that this would happen? … P.P.P.S.: Or is labor angling for a pity vote–they’re about to be so humiliated, Dems will have to do something to help them? … 12:03 A.M.

That last post-post-post-script raises a serious point. If you’re organized labor and usual political allies in the Senate have spurned you on the Employee Free Choice Act, don’t you turn up the heat on them?  The argument would go:

You knew the Employee Free Choice Act was our priority, we helped get you elected, and now you bailed. We are going to withhold our support and even look at primary challengers. We might reconsider if you get behind the rest of our agenda, with no deviation. The RESPECT Act, you’ll need to cosponsor that. You know, the unionize supervisors law. Davis-Bacon, keeping adding that to every spending bill. Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 11, that’s a big one. We’ll be back with some others.

None of those bills or provisions are as much political poison as EFCA’s destruction of the secret ballot, so the members of Congress could sign off with less concern about constituent backlash.

Thus, even if organized labor is privately coming to grips with the Employee Free Choice Act being dead legislatively, they still see value in agitating for congressional action. It’s leverage.

The Senate now recesses until 8:30 p.m. for the President’s address.

UPDATE Here’s the roll call vote.

In other labor-related news…

AP, “Iowa labor measure nears failure; 1 vote short“:

DES MOINES, Iowa – Barring a last-minute change of heart that no one expects, the first major labor measure the Iowa Legislature has tackled will go down to defeat when lawmakers convene on Monday.

Democrats who control the House kept the chamber in session throughout the weekend after a measure which would force contractors bidding on public projects to pay the prevailing wage got 50 votes, one vote short of approval.

Legislative leaders say they don’t expect that to change and there is no sign that someone will change their vote.

So that’s Iowa lawmakers looking out for the interests of taxpayers first, rejecting labor’s efforts to make projects unnecessarily expensive. Good.

Too bad the federal stimulus bill was full of Davis-Bacon requirements so infrastructure dollars won’t go as far as they should.

And here in D.C., political freedom reaffirmed, “Court: State can stop union political deductions“:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a state law banning local governments from letting workers use payroll deductions to fund their union’s political activities, a decision that could strike at organized labor’s ability to raise funds at local levels.

Five labor unions and the Idaho state AFL-CIO successfully argued in lower federal courts that a 2003 Idaho law forcing cities, counties and school districts to eliminate a payroll deduction funding union political action committees violated the First Amendment.

“Idaho’s law does not restrict political speech, but rather declines to promote that speech by allowing public employee checkoff for political activities,” Chief Justice John Roberts said as the court voted 6-3 to overturn those rulings.

Human Events gives us a list, “Top 10 Things On Big Labor’s Agenda ”

1. Employee Free Choice Act
In addition to the notorious “card-check” provision that strips union members of their right to a secret ballot, this bill also provides for increased penalties for employers who commit allegedly unfair labor practices. These increased penalties include treble damages and civil penalties of up to $20,000.

2. Repeal of Section 14(b) of Taft-Hartley
Repeal of this section 14 of the Taft-Hartley Act would take from states the right to enact right-to-work laws.

3. Family Medical Leave Act expansion
Bills sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) in the last Congress proposed creation of an insurance system to provide for paid family medical leave and an expansion of the employers covered by the act.

4. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
This proposal is a response to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. decision, in which the Supreme Court said that the 180-day statute of limitations for equal pay lawsuits begins on the date the pay was agreed to. The Lilly Ledbetter Act would re-start the statute of limitations each time that a paycheck was received.

5. Minimum Wage Hike
Barack Obama’s website promises to “raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011.”

6. Patriot Employer Act
This bill imposes tax increases on companies that have major operations outside the U.S. and tax hikes on those don’t agree to “labor neutrality,” card check, etc.

7. Government unions
Barack Obama promised during the campaign that he would fight for collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration workers. Big Labor will also seek the forced unionization of police, firefighters, and EMTs by federal fiat — overturning the laws of more than two dozen states.

8. Union Financial Disclosure
Drastically revise the Office of Labor-Management Standards’ Form LM-2 that has embarrassed and caused legal problems for union bosses by forcing them to reveal their salaries and spending.

9. National Labor Relations Board
Ram through a pro-union-appointee to the NLRB and add more labor advocates to the board. Right now, of the five seats, three are vacant.

10. Overturn Bush orders
Immediate revocation of Bush executive order on Beck rights notices and Bush executive order prohibitions on use of discriminatory union-only Project Labor Agreements in federal contracting.

And don’t forget: Expand Davis-Bacon wage mandates.

(Hat tip: Jim Gray)

Below we assert that the House-passed energy legislation, H.R. 6899, will not become law. We base the assertion partly on this:

[Critics] of the bill say the absence of revenue sharing for new-producing states means a major means of enticing expanded production is missing. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) has declared the House measure “dead on arrival in the Senate”. She says in her view, “the Senate will never pass a bill without revenue sharing.”

The House bill does not affect a 2006 deal that gives Louisiana and other states currently producing offshore energy a guaranteed share of the revenue. Landrieu said it is unfair for any coastal state willing to allow production off of its coastline not to be guaranteed a set amount of revenue in return. Landrieu said, “it remains today a fairness issue to coastal states.”

And partly on this, the Statement of Administration Policy issued yesterday:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 6899. At a time when American families are in need of genuine relief from the effects of high fuel prices, this bill purports to open access to American energy sources while in reality taking actions to stifle development. Specifically, though H.R. 6899 would open the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and gas exploration in some circumstances, it would do so only in combination with other provisions rendering this opening ineffective. This bill does not allow for revenue-sharing with States, eliminating a critical incentive for them to permit exploration off their shores. Moreover, this bill would replace current, temporary prohibitions on OCS leasing with permanent prohibitions against accessing significant amounts of our OCS oil and gas resources. If H.R. 6899 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Many of the other provisions contained in this bill are taken from other House bills that failed to pass through the Congress, or have been subject to veto threats. Including these poison pills further demonstrates a lack of seriousness about expanding access to the vast domestic energy resources in the OCS. These include: (1) imposing targeted tax increases on energy companies, which would reduce domestic production, increase energy costs, reduce the competitiveness of American companies doing business abroad, and hurt the U.S. economy; (2) imposing a one-size-fits-all national renewable power mandate that ignores regional differences, effectively overriding the individual mandates or policies established by more than 25 states, and increasing electricity costs in States where there are relatively few renewable resources; (3) drawing down the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve simply to manipulate prices, and reducing our ability to respond to severe energy supply disruptions (demonstrated most recently during Hurricanes Gustav and Ike) and thereby jeopardizing the Nation’s energy security; (4) forcing holders of certain deepwater oil and gas leases issued in 1998 and 1999 by the Clinton Administration to renegotiate the terms of their leases or pay an excessive fee in order to remain eligible to bid on new leases; and (5) expanding the application of Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements contrary to the Administration’s long-standing policy of opposing statutory attempts to expand or contract the Davis-Bacon Act.

Davis-Bacon provisions? America needs more domestic energy production, and instead the bill’s sponsors promote organized labor’s agenda to increase the cost of construction projects. How does that help consumers and manufacturers harmed by rising energy costs?

Anyway, DOA everywhere except campaign commecials.

Reading through recent Statements of Administration Policy yesterday, we noticed a trend.

From the SAP for H.R. 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008:

Titles III and V would establish certain capital grants programs requiring workers employed with funds obtained under these programs be paid pursuant to Davis-Bacon Act requirements. Thus, Titles III and V would expand Davis-Bacon Act coverage, which is contrary to the Administration’s long-standing policy of opposing any statutory attempt to expand or contract the applicability of Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements. This expansion could undermine the effectiveness of the enumerated programs.

From the SAP for H.R. 3021, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act:

Moreover, school modernization and repair projects would be considered an ‘applicable program’ under General Education Provisions Act (GEPA), subject to Davis-Bacon Act wage requirements. Because federal funds have not been typically used for this purpose, the Administration is also concerned that the application of Davis-Bacon wage requirements will only inflate the costs of such school modernization and repair projects.

From the SAP for H.R. 5658, the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act:

The Administration strongly opposes section 2828, which would apply Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements to any military construction authorized to be conducted on Guam. This provision is contrary to the Administration’s longstanding policy of opposing any statutory attempt to expand or contract the applicability of Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements.

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion editors obviously noticed the same phenomenon. Today’s editorial, “Look for the Union Label,” details the campaign to insert Davis-Bacon prevailing wage provisions into all sorts of legislation, rewarding organized labor while pushing up the cost of taxpayer-funded construction projects.

What do the farm bill, the cap-and-trade global warming bill, the clean water bill, the housing bailout bill, and the school construction bill all have in common? Not much, except that in each one and countless others the Democratic majority in Congress has inserted “prevailing-wage” requirements that amount to a super-minimum wage.

We’re speaking of Davis-Bacon, the 1931 law that originally applied to road building and other federal construction projects and set a floor on wages in part to price black and Mexican workers out of the work. Today, its main impact is to require de facto union wages. Many reputable studies have estimated that Davis-Bacon inflates federal construction costs by anywhere from 5% to 39%. A Heritage Foundation analysis of wage data reports that in many cities the mandated Davis-Bacon wage is twice as high as the market wage. In Nassau-Suffolk in New York, for example, Davis-Bacon requires a minimum wage for brickmasons of $49.67 an hour, though the more common area wage for that work is $25.50.

It’s difficult to see how policymakers who claim to be serious about addressing America’s deteriorating infrastructure, the roads and rails and ports and airports that are becoming increasingly inefficient and even dangerous, can in good conscience insert provisions into legislation to make these critical projects more expensive. As the Journal points out, the costlier the construction, the fewer projects get done.

Seems like an accurate summary of the state of play with S. 3036, the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, in today’s Washington Post story, “Senate Democrats May Pull Climate Bill.” Quoted is Don Stewart, communications director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

We are going to have Democrats voting to end debate on what they call the most important issue facing the planet and Republicans voting to continue debate on it.

More…

• National Center for Public Policy Research, citing a new poll: “The survey found 64% of likely voters in Outer South states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee) oppose spending more for gasoline to reduce U.S. emissions. 74% of likely voters from the region oppose spending more for electricity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The news release says Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) is out of step with her constituents; she’s a sponsor of Lieberman-Warner. (UPDATE: Similar poll in the Mountain States with Baucus as a target.) (UPDATE: Senator Byrd [D-WV] in step with his constituents, survey shows.)

• The Lieberman-Warner bill expands Davis-Bacon’s prevailing wage mandates to a wide variety of projects — non-federal construction projects, that is – yet another way in which the legislation makes energy more expensive.  James Sherk at the Heritage Foundation has an analysis. But did you know that S. 3036 had Davis-Bacon provisions in it? News to us. It’s almost as if people didn’t want the bill to be really, fully debated.

• And prize for most Orwellian statement this week in the public discussion of alleged man-made global warming goes to Van Jones, the founder of Green For All.  In an interview with “Grist,” the environmental site, Mr. Jones comes up with this claim: “There may be some solutions we haven’t thought of before. We want what we call ‘cap, collect, and invest’ to be the main policy here. We want a cap on carbon. We think it’s a human-rights issue to cap carbon. Then we say collect.” It’s a human-rights issue to cap carbon. OK. And it’s a human rights issue to collect the proceeds from the private sector and redistribute it.

UPDATE (8:55 a.m.): CQ Politics: “Both parties had said they welcomed a wide-ranging debate on the measure (S3036), but it never materialized, in part because the Senate’s ongoing clash over judicial nominations ate up precious floor time and drained the patience of senators.”