The use of Davis Bacon does not prohibit non-union labor on Federally financed projects. However it does use reported wages for various trades in an area over the past year to help set a wage table that prevents the large amount of hours on a large Federal project from driving the wages down by setting a wage in line with the reported wages.
It used to be that only unions took the trouble to report accurately the wages earned in the prior year with all the forms. However, many civil works non-union contractors have been good at reporting wages and many rates published for an area are now below union wages in that area for certain trades.
I want legal construction workers to get the “area standards” wages rather than have large federal work drive down the wages for proper workmen.
The only disadvantage a non-union firm has is that as he pays the “prevailing wage” entirely “on-the-check” without the benefits portion going to a union for healthcare etc (unless he has a non-union approved benefit plan which is rare) he has to figure his unemployment compensation insurance on the entire gross amount when his union competitor only has to take that percentage charge against the gross pay to the worker and not including the benefits. IF the prevailing wage is as high as the union wage which is no longer always true, then this might work out to $0.30 to $1.20 per hour advantage to the union employer. However, the non-union worker gets all the amount, wages and benefits, on-the-check and takes home much more than the union workman working the same trade for a different employer.
I got that. The wage should be what the successful bid contractor pays his people. Make him prove all his people are legal, fine with me.
Davis-Bacon is there to make unions, with their democRat funding overhead, competitive.