Public Employee Press

The World of Work
Activists force Bush to scrap plan to exploit Gulf Coast workers

A grassroots campaign and opposition within his own party forced President Bush to cancel his permission for contractors to pay substandard wages to construction workers rebuilding the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Bush had suspended the 1931 Davis-Bacon Law, which requires federally funded projects to pay prevailing wages.

Activists fired off more than 350,000 e-mail protest messages to Congress, and 37 Republican Representatives appealed to the White House to reverse the suspension.