JLF’s friend John Stossel devotes this column to those pernicious special interest statutes called “prevailing wage” laws. There is a federal prevailing wage statute and some states have them as well. Michigan does, but I don’t know about NC.
The idea is to forbid wage competition in government construction work by having bureaucrats determine what the “prevailing wage” is for various kinds of construction work and then not permitting any contractor to employ less costly labor. It’s a way for high-cost, unionized construction firms to obliterate competition from lower-cost non-union firms.
When you get right down to it, “prevailing wage” laws are nothing but price-fixing schemes for union labor.
When I lived in Michigan, I supported legislation to repeal the PW Act. Even though the GOP controlled both chambers in the state legislature, the bill never even got out of committee, thanks to squishy Republicans who were afraid that if they didn’t side with Big Labor on this issue, they would make the union bosses angry.
And in Washington, the Republicans have had control in Congress for a decade now, but there has been no serious effort to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. I guess they’re too busy coming up with new spending programs to bother with the repeal of old, wasteful laws.