– Bethel Park
To the editor:
This letter is in response to Don Harrison's letter, "Prevailing wage needs to be amended," dated April 22.
The Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage act or "Litte Davis-Bacon act" is a copy of the Federal Davis-Bacon act. Davis and Bacon were legislators from New York and Pennsylvania. One was a Democrat and the other was a Republican. The reason for the act was to keep untrained workers from coming to our area, from economically distressed states, and working on government-funded construction projects for substandard wages.
The Pittsburgh area is fortunate to have the best trained craftswomen and craftsmen in the country. They were trained by local trade schools, apprenticeship programs, or trade unions with little or not cost to the taxpayer. These same people build the roads, bridges, buildings and schools we all use.
Therefore, these craft people deserve to make a living wage dictated by the average wages paid in their area. This is determined by the state through periodic surveys sent to local contractors. This law is needed more than ever, in its current form, as we see an influx of unskilled illegal aliens coming to our area.
A few years back Dick Rose, a Bethel Park school board member, proposed the same thing and over 300 local citizens attended the meeting in protest. If Harrison wants to save our citizens tax money, he should advocate the removal of income tax from state unemployment compensation.
Bethel Park