Tom Harkin: “I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by my friend from Kentucky. As we work to rebuild these communities…”

“I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by my friend from Kentucky. As we work to rebuild these communities in the east coast from Superstorm Sandy, we need policies in place that make these communities stronger. Davis-Bacon is a critical part of that effort because it ensures that the people who are doing the work to rebuild our roads, schools, and bridges in these cities and towns are paid a fair wage. Again, the Davis-Bacon Act ensures that workers on taxpayer-funded projects are paid locally prevailing wages--locally prevailing wages. These protections ensure that the substantial influx of Federal dollars for reconstruction work after a disaster will help prevent a race to the bottom for workers and not contribute to the problem. After a disaster such as this, people are disrupted, and people are out of work. So we have a lot of fly-by-night operators who flock to these areas and abuse the workers. For example, we saw this after Hurricane Katrina. According to a 2006 study, 47 percent of workers in New Orleans reported not receiving all of the pay they were entitled to under law. The same report indicated that 55 percent of workers did not receive overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week. Now, again, my friend from Kentucky says this could save up to 22 percent of the money we are going to put out in Federal taxpayer dollars to help recovery efforts. Well, how can that possibly be?…”