Word: waging
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
Opponents of the repeal contend that taxpayers will gain nothing from voting yes, and that the measure would simply cut wages and increase profits for the contractors. The prevailing wage, they contend, insures that quality work is provided on public projects by preventing communities from automatically accepting the lowest...
Many of the 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 If the prevailing wage were repealed, they claim, and wages were cut by as much as 20 percent, the overall decrease in the price of the project to a community would be as little as 2 to 3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...
...most disturbing aspect of the repeal campaign is not the arguments made against the wage, but rather the style of those arguments and the framework in which the debate has been presented...