Word: labored
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
WHETHER to vote for George Bush or Mike Dukakis may not be the most important issue facing Massachusetts voters this election year. The debate over referendum Question 2, which calls for the repeal of Massachusetts' 74-year-old prevailing wage law, has been marked by an anti-labor campaign significant for its divisiveness and demagoguery. At stake in this campaign is not only the referendum question, but also a mandate on the purpose and function of a community...
...cases for and against the repeal--a YES vote eliminates the wage, a NO vote maintains it--are fairly simple. It is a classic battle between big business and organized labor. Advocates of the repeal argue that the prevailing wage wastes taxpayer dollars by requiring artificially high wages on public projects. "The prevailing wage law creates a tremendous drag on local and town budgets," said Charlie Yelen, a spokesperson for the pro-repeal Fair Wage Committee. "Cities and towns can't afford to pay a wage mandated by the state...
...arguments made by the pro-repeal movement are misleading and inaccurate. Despite claims by the Fair Wage Committee, the current law does not establish a state-wide mandate on how much construction workers should be paid; the hourly wage rate is based on local private contracting costs with union labor and can vary across the state...
...most successful tactic of the pro-repeal campaign has been to argue that eliminating the wage would contribute to lower construction costs and help create lower municipal tax rates. But according to the pro-wage Committee for Quality of Life, the average cost of labor on a construction bid is only 15 to 20 percent. If the prevailing wage were repealed, they claim, and wages were cut by as much as 20 percent, the overall decrease in the price of the project to a community would be as little as 2 to 3 percent...
...construction projects disguises the far more important issue of quality work on publicly-funded projects. An effort by communities to save money by accepting the lowest bid may lead to further costs for repairs and maintenance that would have been unnecessary with more skilled (and, yes, more expensive) labor...