RSSDon Kuhn Admits Penn Hills PLA Would Be At Union Wages
J.J. Jackson | September 9, 2010
In the movie Enemy of the State, Gene Hackman’s character (Brill) says to Will Smith’s character (Robert Clayton), “You’re either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.” Turn’s out that Will Smith’s character was indeed incredibly smart. But in a sort of universe balance way someone else has to be incredibly stupid.
I might have found that person; Don Kuhn of the Penn Hills School Board.
I recently talked about how the school district in Pennsylvania where I live approved a PLA (Project Labor Agreement) for some construction work in the district. PLA’s, I mentioned, often are designed to favor unions in that they conform to union labor practices and wages and force anyone wanting to bid on the project(s) they cover to do the same.
This, I mentioned, means that non-union laborers (who as much as union workers hate to admit it, do as good or better a job than their union counterparts in the same field) who often work for lower wages (because they have to compete in the free market and don’t have cozy blanket contracts with governments and industry) and can bid based on those lower wages lose one of their biggest bargaining chips from the table.
Since I wrote my little post on this outrage I have of course been flooded with emails from union hacks telling me that salaries in the PLA were not tied to the union wage and that non-union workers were not being discriminated against.
Well, Don Kuhn has come out and admitted that the PLA does in fact tie itself to union wages, proving my point.
“The prevailing rate would be the same as the union rate with a few more cents for taxes,” – Don Kuhn (Quote from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
What is even worse is that according the Post Gazette’s article only up to 10% of the work force on these projects can be non-union!
Board member Bob Hudak asked for and received clarification that the agreement permits up to 10 percent of workers to be nonunion.
Gee, thanks guys! Thanks for letting “up to” 10% of the work force being non-union. Notice that, technically, 0% is “up to” 10%. Well, looks like once again we’re all going to be getting the shaft here in Penn Hills.
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