Posts Tagged ‘Jerry Gorski’
ABC Leader: “Specter’s switch could force businesses to close”
Be sure not to miss Associated Builders and Contractors national chairman Jerry Gorski’s article from this weekend on the Employee Free Choice Act and Sen. Arlen Specter.
Gorski’s conclusion:
EFCA could cost up to 600,000 American jobs in the first year alone with millions more job losses to come, according to a study by Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist from the nonpartisan firm LECG consulting.
In light of this study, many Pennsylvania businesses would likely close their doors and workers would be unemployed if EFCA became law.
That is unacceptable.
With many businesses in the state already struggling in this economy, I don’t understand how Specter can justify his surprising reversal on this reckless legislation.
He needs to answer to Pennsylvania workers and businesses that stand to lose if this bill becomes law.
Card Check: ABC Educates Pennsylvanians
The relative importance of Sen. Arlen Specter’s views on the Employee Free Choice Act — and labor law reform in general — is high because the law’s razor-thin margins for success or failure in the Senate. This weekend the Philadelphia Inquirer looked at the bill’s status and the political whispers around their home-state Senator’s role.
Luckily, ABC was there to add some employer perspective. After noting an EFCA proponent’s position, the Inquirer reports:
Not surprisingly, Jerry Gorski, national chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors, disagrees. Not only is the bill unfair to workers and businesses, he says, but it also shows a mind-set that ignores the realities of the global economy.
“Why is the government saying, ‘Well, we need to make it easier to go back to that union model,’ instead of being progressive and helping develop what the new models are?” Gorski asks.
Workers and owners need flexibility, Gorski argues, not rules that say who can use a hammer and who can’t.
He says being flexible allowed his contracting business in Collegeville to avoid layoffs during the current recession, though that sometimes means carpenters painting or landscaping.
“We may be underutilizing someone’s skills,” Gorski says, “but everybody is working, and that’s the kind of stability and adaptability we need. . . . Legislation isn’t going to solve our workforce needs for the future.”
