The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #109055   Message #2352429
Posted By: DannyC
29-May-08 - 05:27 PM
Thread Name: BS: Popular views on McCain
Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
Here's McCain backing up the money men and dissing the laboring union man (no surprise there)....
Remember this in November!

McCain to visit area firm

By JENNA PORTNOY
The Intelligencer

In his first Bucks County campaign stop Friday, John McCain will host a town hall meeting at a Pipersville company embroiled in a battle with the state over employees' wages.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president will visit Worth & Company Inc. at 6263 Kellers Church Road .

The event is free and open to the public, said campaign spokesman Jeff Sadosky. Doors will open at 12:30 p.m. and McCain will give opening remarks and take questions for an hour starting at 2 p.m., he said.

Bucks County Commissioner Jim Cawley plans to be there.

"I assume part of the discussion is going to be on the economy as well as on the family-sustaining jobs that the company provides," he said.

President and co-founder Stephen Worth started the company after graduating from Central Bucks West High School . Today Worth & Company has more than 500 employees and earned $125 million in revenue last year. The contractor installs and services heating, cooling and plumbing systems in public and commercial buildings and residences.

Worth's story sets an example of American ingenuity that McCain will likely praise, said Geoffrey Zeh, president and CEO of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors.

The trade group was the first national association to back McCain back in February, Zeh said. ABC opposes project labor agreements, which are deals that usually limit a large-scale construction project to union workers.

"McCain certainly is in line with ABC on all our issues, particularly on project labor agreements," Zeh said. "That's why we endorsed him."

The issue has garnered attention in Bucks County because the county has not ruled out a project labor agreement for the proposed justice center in Doylestown. Republican commissioners have said they may at some point ask consultants Joseph Jingoli and Son Inc. to study the feasibility of such a deal.

Although labor supporters say in the long run hiring unions is cheaper than hiring nonunion shops, Zeh said union-only projects generally cost more than projects open to all contractors.

"The less companies that bid on a public job, the higher the costs seem to go," he said. "Competition keeps prices down. That's Economics 101."

Worth has expressed similar sentiments himself and McCain's presence at the company underscores the labor debate.

The visit is also significant because the state is investigating whether the company cheated employees out of $142,000 in wages on government projects, including Quakertown Middle School .

The state says the underpayments violated the state's Prevailing Wage Law, which sets pay rates for work on projects involving government entities. The charges could result in a three-year ban on any government work for Worth.

But Worth officials have said the state is unfairly targeting the company — the state's largest nonunion mechanical contractor.

Republican lawmakers have backed Worth with letters to the state attorney general arguing that state labor and industry officials were overly aggressive in pursuing what they called minor noncompliance with the wage law.
n backing the money...