[meadsjn]

I've never been pro-union, but your opposition to prevailing wages is quite out-dated, considering that union labor is currently such a small percentage of the non-government work force.

On the other hand, brokered labor, as described in the article, is the biggest economic crime against American workers and American businesses ever.

Labor brokers (i.e. recruiting firms, temp firms, etc), whether for unskilled, skilled, engineering, or professional positions, drive up the costs of labor to companies and drive down the wages earned by the providers of the labor. The labor brokers want the foreign workers because they can get them to accept a lower hourly rate, but the rate charged the client companies rarely is decreased. The extra margin boosts the labor broker's profit for providing what is usually less qualified workers to the client companies.

Instead of using the union strawman, let's work to abolish the IRS rules that strongly discourage companies from negotiating with and directly employing independent contractors. That is what has created the corrupt contracting practices such as the article describes.

[bpjam]

I’m sure there is a different interpretation in every state but here is what ‘prevailing wage’ means in English in the State of Nevada.

Prevailing Wage - The highest wage paid for any similar work during the past two years.

Is that definition in law? No. Is that how the unions require the state operate? Yes.

And in Nevada, it is required (back when the Dems ran everything) by law that all public construction jobs pay the ‘prevailing wage’. And somehow, they all end up being union contractors who get the bids. And subsequently we end up paying 40% extra to build the dozen schools in Las Vegas each year.

Unions may be a small percentage of the entire workforce but they derive their power from the fact that they are attached at the hip to the government and the government controls the largest contracts. I’d be happy to be in any business where I’m only a small player but I have a lock on the largest client in the state.

[Ben Ficklin]

"the biggest economic crime against American workers"

Talk about being a drama queen.

This is the H2B. The quota is only 66,000. While it may be under a temporary increase and there may be some that can be re-captured, the total number is certainly well below 150,000. Compare that to 12 plus million illegals.

You union boys masquerading as conservatives are a big joke. We know you want to replace these temporary visas with permanent visas.