All-Republican Group of Senators Votes to Pay Construction Workers Wages Below Poverty Level

December 29th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Economy | Election 2012 | Legislation | Politics | Republicans - (5 Comments)

In 2011, an all-Republican group of members of the House responded to the ongoing economic slump by voting in favor of House Amendment 169. If passed, H.Amdt 169 would have forbidden any money from being spent to enforce the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates that construction contractors with the federal government pay the prevailing wage for an area. That’s not an extravagant standard; prevailing wages for construction work pays below the poverty level in many places across the United States, as Rep. Timothy Bishop made clear in a speech on the House floor regarding abolition of the Davis-Bacon wage standard for federal workers:

"I want to be clear on what our friends on the other side of the aisle are fighting for. The prevailing wage for a bricklayer in Lee County, Florida, is $8.34 an hour. That is an annual rate of $17,000 a year. The Federal poverty level for a family of four is approximately $21,000 a year. Does this Congress really want to go on record as imposing a wage rate that consigns the hardworking people of our communities to living under the Federal poverty level? I would hope not."

That all-Republican group in the House didn’t manage to cut construction workers’ wages below the poverty level in 2011, but yesterday another all-Republican group in the Senate tried to do so again. Led by Senator Rand Paul, an all-Republican group of Senators voted in favor of Senate Amendment 3376, which again would have prohibited any enforcement of Davis-Bacon wage standards for American construction workers on federal projects. Rand Paul’s amendment would have pushed wages for full-time construction workers even farther below poverty levels — and every one of the 42 Senators who voted for the amendment yesterday was a Republican. Under this ongoing Republican plan, construction corporations reap extra profit while construction workers are ground into the dust. Fortunately, the Republican plan to cut construction wages even further below poverty level failed.

In the 2012 elections, Republicans lost elections for the House, the Senate and the Presidency because the American people felt that Republican politicians were a bunch of elitists who defended corporate riches while attacking workers. Yesterday’s vote will not help to change that perception.

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Iron Wood

July 15th, 2010 | Posted by Truman in Moral Values | Questions - (2 Comments)

In his book, Oak: The Frame of Civilization, William Bryant Logan asks us to choose between the wood of an oak tree and the metal of the Eiffel Tower. He writes,

“If you put a skin on the Eiffel Tower or gave it branches, the thing would fall down in the first good blow. Iron is harder than wood. This is perhaps the lone advantage of the tower’s structure. But this advantage is counteracted by the fact that wood, though softer, is dynamic, while iron is passive… The oak is generative, the tower parasitic… The oak gives oxygen to the air. More than five thousand species live on, in or by means of the average oak… What does the tower give? A spectacle. To see and to see from. If you had to pick one or the other to emulate, which would you choose?”

Are we truly at a point in history in which we must accept Logan’s dualistic ultimatum, to adopt either a life of iron or a life of wood?

Can we not pursue a mosaic life that incorporates both materials? If we can, how do we decide when the situation calls for one material over another? Which moments are best structured in iron, and which are best left in oak?

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Nail Driving For the Inauguration

October 27th, 2008 | Posted by F. G. Fitzer in Politics | Questions - (2 Comments)

Why must they do these things? The Congressional Committee for Inaugural Ceremonies is getting busy setting up the parties for Inauguration Day, and that’s all well and good, I suppose. What I don’t understand, however, is the Nail Driving Ceremony.

It’s just embarrassing, seeing a bunch of United States Senators in business suits, with their ceremonial personalized white hard hats taken off, gingerly picking up hammers and tapping nails into a board laid down before them.

It’s a ceremony celebrating the beginning of construction for the things that will be needed for another ceremony. Well, was there a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the commencement of the organization of the nail driving ceremony?

Why do they do these things? Would anyone suffer if the senators didn’t play with the hammers?

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The Surveillance Bluff

April 10th, 2008 | Posted by Jim Cook in Activism | Homeland Insecurity | State and Local - (3 Comments)

Last Friday, I came across a construction site with five signs warning of ongoing camera surveillance there. Someone had plastered each of the signs with a sticker:

Surveillance Warning covered with a sticker in Columbus, Ohio

Last night I walked by the site again and decided to take a few minutes to look around:

Construction Site for Ibiza Condos on High Street in Columbus, Ohio

I walked around the entire perimeter of the empty lot, looking up and down. There wasn’t a single surveillance camera on the site, or on any surrounding street lamps, or on any adjacent buildings.

The surveillance warning is a bluff.

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