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WASHINGTON, DC -- The Congressional Research Service reported late yesterday that President Bush’s suspension of wage standards for workers in the Gulf Coast may have been illegal. Representative George Miller (D-CA) said today that the Bush Administration, in its rush to undermine workers’ wages, may have done so without first declaring a national emergency, as the law requires.
“President Bush was in such a hurry to cut workers’ wages that he did it even before declaring a national emergency. This may mean that the President’s wage proclamation was done illegally. Contractors in the Gulf Coast should be aware that the President’s proclamation may not protect them from liability if they choose to ignore the law and pay workers less than the prevailing wage,” said Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which oversees federal labor law. “The Bush Administration first made mistakes when it was too slow to respond to rising floodwaters; then it made mistakes when it was too quick to slash workers’ wages.
“Democrats in Congress have already called on President Bush to rescind this mean-spirited proclamation, based on the moral and economic issue of denying people a fair wage, and he should do so immediately. Gulf Coast workers won’t be able to rebuild their lives without decent wages,” said Miller.
Under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, federal contractors must pay employees a prevailing wage, or the typical wage for their job function in the local area. President Bush’s proclamation suspended these wage standards for the parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi affected by Katrina.
The Congressional Research Service issued a report yesterday that said that President Bush may have failed to follow the law when issuing his proclamation on Davis-Bacon. He should have first declared a national emergency pursuant to the National Emergencies Act, according to CRS. Miller said this haste reflected the Bush Administration’s eagerness to please right-wing political supporters who have long opposed Davis-Bacon.
The CRS report reads, in part: “An anomaly in the activation of emergency powers appears to have occurred on September 8, 2005, when President George W. Bush issued a proclamation suspending certain wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act in the course of the federal response to the Gulf coast disaster resulting from Hurricane Katrina. Instead of following the historical pattern of declaring a national emergency to activate the suspension authority, the President set out the following rationale in the proclamation: “I find that the conditions caused by Hurricane Katrina constitute a ‘national emergency’ within the meaning of section 3147 of title 40, United States Code.” A more likely course of action seemingly would have been for the President to declare a national emergency pursuant to the National Emergencies Act and to specify that he was, accordingly, activating the suspension authority. The propriety of the President’s action in this case may be ultimately determined in the courts.”
The Congressional Research Service is the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.
On September 14, Miller introduced legislation in the House to overturn the President’s proclamation. It already has more than 170 cosponsors.
The CRS report is available at http://www.congress.gov/erp/rl/pdf/98-505.pdf. See pages 18-19.
For more information on President Bush’s suspension of Davis-Bacon wage standards, visit: http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/katrina.shtml.
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