The Racist David Bacon Act and its Progeny

To be clear, in my experience union CRAFTSMEN are outstanding at what they do, as a general proposition. I would never imply that union craftsmen do substandard work. Plumbers, electricians, HVAC, pipefitters...the lot of them. Excellent work.

But having worked for many years in government contracting, the Government ensures high quality products through detailed specifications that set tolerances, material quality, and specific building products where those are superior. It does not ensure quality by mandating high wages, which is patently stupid.

There is no analogous law that demands manufacturing employees be paid at the "prevailing wage," and yet there is no indication that products manufactured to government specifications are inferior. Most claims of such are military equipment which is specifically designed for a strategic application, and failures are due to failures in design, not poor workmanship.

As for government workers, IT USED TO BE that government hired people who couldn't get a job anywhere else. Government wages were relatively low, and college grads from, say, the top half of their classes never even bothered applying for government jobs. When I worked in DoD procurement, the engineers, accountants, and technicians on "our side of the table" were always inferior to those on the Contractor's side, and it showed in negotiations. That was one of the reasons why I left.

Accordingly, government offered slightly lower wages than the private sector, but offered better benefits, and mostly EARLY RETIREMENT. Those were the reasons why the aforesaid people wanted to work for government.

Then the cancer of collective bargaining was brought in by Democrat politicians hoping to buy the votes of government employees and their families, and the rest is history. Now they not only get better benefits and early retirement, but they MAKE MORE than the average of their peers in private industry...and NEVER have to worry about being laid off. Exhibit A being the current government budget crisis in the states and local governments of the U.S. Their people are doing half the work that they did in 2019, but NONE OF THEM GOT LAID OFF. No hours were cut. No pay cuts. In short, none of the things occurred that would normally occur in a private company.

Over-compensation of government employees is one of the biggest scandals of government, world-wide, but nobody talks about it. Only "cranks."

Like me.
 

Forum List

Back
Top