WASHINGTON - Today, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) released the following statement after the Biden administration issued a final rule to update Davis-Bacon Act regulations on prevailing wages for federal construction projects:
“This administration can’t bend over backward far enough to satisfy its union puppet masters. The Wage and Hour Division’s sweeping Davis-Bacon rule change is reckless and irresponsible. Unfortunately, this rule does nothing to ‘modernize’ the Davis-Bacon regulations. Reverting back to a decades-old definition of ‘prevailing wage’ and undermining reforms that were made to a broken system makes no sense to taxpayers and is clearly intended to be a handout to union bosses at the expense of smaller construction companies and their workers. Bowing to union bosses in this way is an egregious breach of trust with America’s workers.
"This rule will also drastically increase the costs of federal construction projects, leading to fewer completed infrastructure projects and a greater burden on taxpayers. Further, the rule fails to address the outdated wage determination process meaningfully, which has been consistently criticized by the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General for the inaccuracy of collected data. Without changing the underlying collection methods, Davis-Bacon wage rates will continue to be inaccurate and bear little resemblance to true market rates in the construction industry. From every angle, the Biden administration’s Davis-Bacon rule is wrong."