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Some thirty years ago the national conscience was aroused by the destructive effect of widespread unemployment on wages of workers. It was a time of depression. Competition for limited markets forced employers to cut labor costs. Wages and prices spiraled downward. One bold way chosen to stop this trend was the National Industrial Recovery Act,1 providing for codes of fair competition for both prices and wages. Another, confined to the construction industry, was the Davis-Bacon Act, passed in I93I and strengthened in I935,2 requiring the payment of prevailing wages to laborers and mechanics performing contracts for the construction, alteration, and repair of public works of the United States. A third, and also limited effort, was the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, passed in I936,3 after the National Industrial Recovery Act had been declared unconstitutional. This act became law at a time when regulation of labor standards and the use of the commerce powers for this purpose were considered beyond the reach of congressional action.4 It was clearly within the reach of Congress, however, to prevent the purchasing power of the federal government from being used to permit bidders on federal supply contracts to profit by depressing wages and working conditions. The Walsh-Healey Act established the eight-hour day and the forty-hour week, prohibited child labor, set safety standards, and authorized the Secretary of Labor to determine prevailing minimum wages for contract performance. It is, in a general sense, a counterpart of the Davis-Bacon Act, setting labor standards for supply contracts, as does the Davis-Bacon Act for construction contracts. These basic statutes on labor standards for government contracts-the WalshHealey Act and the Davis-Bacon Act-are the concern of this article: their usefulness, their need, their operation, and their shortcomings. Each aspect of both statutes will be separately examined.

The Davis-Bacon Act and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act: A Comparison of Coverage and Minimum Wage Provisions