Political Quotes

“I rise as one, again, who has worked on union shop and merit shop jobs, both as an employer and as an employee. As an employer, having been a union shop, I have paid union scale and also, of course, prevailing wage, Davis-Bacon wage scale. I've worked under a union shop, and I've worked on a merit based, and to look at the difference in the workmanship, I don't think we can apply high quality strictly to union. In fact, merit shop employees do a fantastic job with the work that they're doing, and they take pride in it, and they have to compete in the competition of the project. My son's now in the construction business, the second generation King Construction. I know the decisions he has to make, and sometimes he will pick up a set of plans and take a look at that and figure on bidding that project and find out that it's a Davis-Bacon wage scale. He understands that that messes up his flow of his employees, and it limits his ability to manage those employees on the job. For example, if you're paying an excavator operator $24 an hour and you're paying your laborer on the ground with a shovel or a grease gun let's say $10, that man is not going to get off of that excavator and pick up that grease gun or pick up that shovel, even if it's for a half hour or an hour if he knows he's going to be paid union scale for that when he could be paid the $24 an hour to sit on the machine. Those things work against our efficiency.”