The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, as amended, requires, inter alia , that construction contractsentered into by the federal government specify minimum wages to be paid to the various classes oflaborers employed under those contracts. (2) Minimum wages are defined as those determined by the Secretaryof Labor (a) to be prevailing (b) in the locality of the project (c) for similar crafts and skills (d) oncomparable construction work. The concept of wage was expanded in 1964 to include a fringebenefit component. The act has a coverage threshold of $2,000 and above. In addition to direct federal construction contracts, the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage"principle" has been written into a series of federal program statutes. The act is supplemented bythe 1934 Copeland "anti-kickback" Act (which requires weekly reporting of wages actually paid andan affirmation from employers that any deductions from wages due to employees have been proper),and by federal overtime pay and health and safety standards statues. Further, some states haveenacted "little Davis-Bacon" Acts within their respective jurisdictions. The issues surrounding the act have changed little through the years. Does the act protectworkers, help stabilize the construction industry, and serve the federal contracting community? Oris it anti-competitive, preventing flexible workforce utilization? Has it been administeredeffectively, and if not, can it be administered in an equitable fashion? Is there sufficient objectiveinformation concerning the act to allow for fair assessment of the statute and its impact? The Davis-Bacon Act is a federal statute . It does not have any direct impact uponnon-federal construction or wage rates. In so far as it ensures that persons employed on federalcontract work receive not less than the prevailing wage, the act could have a ripple effect uponnon-federal construction and/or other work. (3) Is the Davis-Bacon wage a union wage? And, does the act mandate that union wages be paidon federal contract construction projects? It may be a union wage -- where the union rate isdetermined to be the locally prevailing wage . But it need not be the union rate. It depends upon therate that the Department of Labor (DOL) finds to be prevailing in an area. If the union rate prevails,then the union rate becomes the Davis-Bacon wage. If another rate (a non-union wage) prevails, thenthat rate becomes the Davis-Bacon rate. A great deal depends upon the processes and proceduresof the Department of Labor which administers the act. Does the Davis-Bacon Act inflate the cost of federal contracts? Theoretically, it should not. The Department of Labor reviews the conditions under which public (federal) construction occurs,determines the "locally" prevailing wage, and then applies that wage to federal projects. But theDavis-Bacon rate need not be the actual rate paid, since the market may require a higher rate in orderto recruit employees. Thus, the Davis-Bacon wage may be a floor and not necessarily the wage paid. What is meant by locality ? Traditionally, the department observes the wage rates paid onseveral classes of construction (i.e., residential, public buildings, highways, and heavy construction)for each jurisdiction (normally a county unit) across the United States. It is usually upon that unitthat locality is based. Perhaps the most frequently asked question concerning the Davis-Bacon Act is the following: How much money could we save (the taxpayer and the government contractor) if the Davis-BaconAct were repealed or modified to narrow its scope? Many have claimed to have an answer, but thereis little empirical evidence available. The short answer would seem to be that no one really knows. Does the Davis-Bacon Act, in fact, save money for the federal construction consumer? It may -- butthat question is similarly open. After nearly three-quarters of a century, why is the literature on Davis-Bacon of such dubiousvalue? First, given the number of projects covered by the act (and their diversity), it is nearlyimpossible for an independent scholar to review the act's administration and to assess its impact. Second, there is the availability of basic documentation. How much information has actually beenpreserved? Third, assuming that the data are available, securing such documentation (and access toadministrative personnel) may be problematic. If one assumes that documentation exists, that the analyst is granted access to it, that all ofthe parties are cooperative, and that the means, financial and other, are available for such anundertaking, the analyst is left with a fourth complication. He or she is comparing something thatdid happen with something that in fact, for whatever reasons, did not happen. In the absence of aDavis-Bacon requirement, would the contract have gone to the same contractor? If so (or if not),would it have been managed in the same way? Did the act have any impact upon the wages actuallypaid or upon workforce utilization? Without Davis-Bacon, would different workers have beenemployed -- and would they have been paid different rates? These same questions confront a public agency in its efforts to investigate Davis-Bacon'simpact. For a public agency, the task is no less massive than it would have been for a privatescholar. And, in the public sector, there may be other constraints. Simply put, how much fundingand staff time could (or should) be devoted to an investigation of the Davis-Bacon impact onconstruction that is already in place? What political or policy concerns may come into play? One might like to be able to say, forthrightly, that a change in the statute could have apositive or a negative impact. However, the state of current exploratory research would probablybe insufficient to justify just an assertion. (4) Historically, it is not entirely clear why it was necessary for the Franklin RooseveltAdministration to have suspended the act. Only very limited documentation concerning thesuspension appears to be available. For the more recent Administrations (those of Richard Nixonand George W. H. Bush), it is also difficult to define precisely their rationales -- though the BushAdministration acted in response to particular events. The case of George W. Bush, of course, is stillunfolding. The materials, here, are presented as something of an historical sketch . As noted above, the original version of the Davis-Bacon Act (March 3, 1931), as in effectduring the Roosevelt Administration, included the provision that "in case of national emergency thePresident is authorized to suspend the provisions of this act." By the early summer of 1934, with the enactment of various New Deal statutes, there wassome confusion as to which laws took priority where the wages of construction workers wereconcerned. In this instance, there appears to have been a conflict between the provisions of theDavis-Bacon Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) -- the latter, a very broad generalstatute designed to restructure the economy and which was subsequently found to be unconstitutional(1937). (5) Acting upon the advice of the Secretary of Labor and the Administrator of Public Works,Roosevelt declared, simply: "I find that a national emergency exists," and, under date of June 5,1934, suspended the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act for an indefinite period. He did not define"national emergency" in his proclamation of suspension beyond noting that concurrent operation ofthe two laws (Davis-Bacon and the NIRA) caused "administrative confusion and delay which couldbe avoided by suspension of the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act." (6) The impact of the suspension of 1934 seems not to have been immediately felt. Chester M.Wright, a former American Federation of Labor staffer and, at that time, a Washington journalist,observed: "The suspension order did not become publicly known for a week or ten days. Even thenit was necessary to go to the State Department for a copy." When the President's action did becomepublic, building trades unions protested, charging that the suspension was the "beginning of anational wage-cut campaign." (7) On June 30, 1934, as quietly as it had been suspended (just 25 days earlier), the act wasrestored to full force, the President simply remarking of the suspension proclamation that "it appearsthat a revocation of the said proclamation would be in the public interest." (8) As in the case of the firstproclamation, the latter seems to have been little noticed, the first press account appearing on July4, 1934. Wright viewed the second proclamation as tantamount to an acknowledgment that thePresident had been "badly advised." (9) No other formal suspension of the act appears to have occurreduntil 1971. During February 15-25, 1971, the AFL-CIO Executive Council (and associated groups) metat Bal Harbour, Florida. The Davis-Bacon Act was considered, indirectly and directly, in twocontexts. First, there was a demand that general revenue sharing legislation, then pending beforeCongress (and which the AFL-CIO opposed), provide, inter alia, for labor standards comparable tothose in the Davis-Bacon Act. Second, the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the Davis-Bacon Actwas at hand. Setting the Stage. In a resolution dealing withrevenue sharing, the Council affirmed, "There is widespread agreement on the responsibility of thefederal government to provide financial aid to the state and local governments, particularly, in thistime of rapid social and economic change." However, the Council rejected the Administration'sapproach, urging in its place a diversified program of its own.