Go Gongwer
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
Gongwer reports on yesterday’s Controlling Board meeting–they’re the guys who write the checks, or cause them to be written, anyway–that “prevailing wage” is coming down the pike from Gov. Strickland.
The Strickland administration confirmed Monday it is considering a major policy change in which private companies that receive millions in state aid would have to pay prevailing wage on their construction projects.
Word of the expansion in the application of prevailing wage - the geographic pay scale usually tied to union contracts - surfaced as the Controlling Board released $2 million in Third Frontier Program grants.
Well of course prevailing wage is coming. There hasn’t been much doubt about that. This is a great reporting catch, though, the good stuff, because it’s the real meat and potatoes. Knowing something is coming is quite different from catching it when it does come.
It’s really a shame how much of government is just about shoveling money from one pocket into another, and of course the only pocket the money is being shoveled out of is yours. Our officials seem interested only in the debate over what pocket it gets shoveled into: the unions, large corporations or entitlement programs. (I wonder if there are any economists out there studying how large the politicians’ commissions are among these groups? My initial guess would be that it’s pretty constant, but that’s just to start the models going.)
As for those few of you who save anything, there is only one message for you: suckers.
Tags: Labor, prevailing wage, Spending
