Walker calls for scrapping Davis-Bacon

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Amid falling poll numbers in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Gov. Scott Walker planned (PDF) to call Monday for the elimination of the federal Davis-Bacon prevailing-wage laws and the National Labor Relations Board, as well as making all states right-to-work unless they choose to opt out.

The proposals are coming as part of a long series of restrictions that Walker plans to say he wants to impose on organized labor in the U.S. If elected president, Walker is suggesting, he will try to replicate at the national level his success as the governor of Wisconsin in curbing the power of unions.

In remarks released earlier Monday, Walker’s campaign predicted billions of dollars of savings from his proposed elimination of the Davis-Bacon Act – which requires that a minimum prevailing wage be paid on federal construction projects, as well as state road projects that receive federal money. In a report released in November 2013, the Congressional Budget Office had estimated that lifting Davis-Bacon requirements would result in $13 billion in savings between 2015 and 2023.

Most of the benefit would go to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which either directly commissions or helps finance about half of all construction projects that the federal government has a hand in. Also seeing savings would be the Department of Defense, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Homeland Security, among others.

Walker and many Republicans lawmakers in the state Legislature supported a budget provision this year that, come 2017, will eliminate the state’s separate prevailing-wage laws that now apply to projects undertaken by local governments, school districts, technical colleges and municipal utilities. The requirements are to remain intact only for work commissioned by the state – mostly vertical and highway construction.

What’s more, the wage rates paid are to be those set by the Davis-Bacon Act. It was not immediately clear Monday whether Walker, if he were to eliminate Davis-Bacon as president, would also be automatically getting rid of prevailing wages for, say, state building projects.

Mike Mikalsen, chief of staff to state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, said state lawmakers might still have to pass an additional law to get rid of the pay requirements entirely. Nass was one of the chief proponents of the budget provision getting rid of prevailing wages for local projects in Wisconsin.

Also in Walker’s campaign statement Monday, the presidential candidate called for eliminating the use of project-labor agreements on federal construction jobs. Agreements of that sort generally direct public-works contracts to union companies in return for pledges to not strike or disrupt projects in other ways.

“Special interest giveaways like Davis-Bacon wage controls and project labor agreements for federal highway projects require the federal government to pay artificially high wages to union bosses,” according to remarks released Monday by Walker’s campaign.

As for the National Labor Relations Board – an agency that rules on allegations of labor-law violations – Walker said he would dismantle it and transfer its responsibilities to various other authorities, including the federal court system.  His campaign’s statement accused the board of being a “one-sided advocate for big-labor special interests.”

Amid other plans that Walker will lay out during a town-hall meeting to take place Monday evening in Las Vegas, Walker said he will propose eliminating unions that represent employees of the federal government, making all workplaces right-to-work unless individual states choose otherwise and making it more difficult for unions to organize.

Labor-law experts said his plans, if successful, would substantially reduce the power of organized labor in America.

Although Walker could enact some of the proposals using a presidential executive order, others would require an act of Congress or changes in federal regulations. The goal, Walker said, is “to achieve fairness and opportunity for American workers.”

“This will not be easy,” Walker said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Many — including the union bosses and the politicians they puppet — have long benefited from Washington rules that put the needs of special interests before needs of middle-class families.”

Experts were taken aback by the scope of Walker’s proposals, which seek to undo decades of law and would gut the landmark National Relations Labor Act — adopted in 1935 and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of the Great Depression.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ann Hodges, a professor at the University of Richmond who has studied labor law for more than 40 years. “This will take the breath away from anyone who’s worked in labor relations for any length of time. … It’s pretty draconian.”

Walker rose to national prominence in 2011, when just six weeks after taking office as governor, he proposed effectively ending collective bargaining for most public workers in Wisconsin. In the face of protests that often numbered in the tens of thousands, Walker muscled the changes through the state Legislature.

Democrats responded by forcing Walker into a recall election in 2012, which he won — making him the first governor in U.S. history to do so. He went on to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state in March this year. Under right-to-work laws, workers can’t be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

His call for fighting unions at the national level comes as Walker seeks to gain momentum for a presidential campaign that has fallen behind following the rise of the billionaire businessman Donald Trump to the top of early opinion polls.

The Associated Press contributed to this article