So for reference I am basically a middle man for the government. I bid on contracts they put out and I either perform or purchase the item/task myself or sometimes subcontract it through the legal process I’ve been given by whichever agency i’m working with.
Almost any business that requires manual labor has told me they can’t do any of the jobs i’m offering because they are afraid to disclose their payroll and cannot discuss the prevailing wages clause all of these contracts require.
So in laymen’s terms, I can’t get a landscaping company to cover a contract in the hundreds thousands range because they hire migrant workers illegally and don’t pay them a living wage. I can’t hire a HVAC company to install a new system for a VA hospital because they cook their books to hide that they have people under 17 working for less than a living wage.
This isn’t like one or two companies I’ve tried to work with. This is almost half of them. Some of them owned by people I’ve known since we were young. People I respected and thought were upstanding. Really makes me think we need a revolution.