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Jubelirer Rebuts House Democrat Posturing on
Prevailing Wage
HARRISBURG -- Top
House Democrat leaders are astonishingly clueless about the realities and
financial challenges facing economic and community development projects in small
towns across rural Pennsylvania, according to Senator Robert C. Jubelirer.
“Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon have demonstrated once
again their fondness for over-the-top partisan rhetoric. Unfortunately, they
evidence no understanding of how economic development projects work, or how jobs
are created,” Jubelirer said.
Jubelirer rejected the contention that Senate
Republicans were seeking to “eviscerate” prevailing wage, as Veon characterized
it. “What Pennsylvania is seeing right now is an unprecedented expansion of
prevailing wage by state bureaucrats, in a way that is complicating economic
development and threatening projects in the parts of the state that need them
most desperately. Our experienced and capable local economic development
officials, who deal with prospects and projects day-to-day, have registered
mounting concern over this for nearly two years. Without some reason here, we
will see opportunities lost, and that hurts the workers they are supposedly
trying to help.
“Prevailing wage is being interpreted by the
Department of Labor & Industry to cover entire projects, if those projects have
any state funding in them whatsoever. Since prevailing wage rates are regional,
it means that urban wage rates are laid across the projects in rural areas or in
distressed communities. State funding can end up being a liability instead of a
benefit, and that threatens the viability of a lot of necessary and worthwhile
projects. I have a project in my area that will produce 4,000 jobs, and it is
entangled in the prevailing wage problem. The unions have supported this
project every step of the way, which is an indication that DeWeese-Veon charges
about our search for a solution being anti-union is so much political nonsense,”
Jubelirer explained.
“The question as it related to the economic stimulus
package was a very legitimate one -- why should someone vote for a costly
package if the prevailing situation makes it difficult or impossible for
projects to take place in their district? If nothing were changed, this would
further concentrate the projects in metropolitan areas. If projects do not take
place, I doubt workers are going to satisfied talking about what the wage rates
might have been,” he observed.
Jubelirer noted that DeWeese’s and Veon’s sudden
impatience on a redevelopment assistance cap bill stood in contrast to their
nine-month delay in introducing a rather simple bill. “We are fully committed
to increasing the state’s economic development effort. We are also committed to
seeing that the opportunities are available to every part of the state.”
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