ABC member testifies against union favoritism

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Associated Builders and Contractors’ member Stephen Worth, president and CEO of Worth and Company, Inc., Pipersville, Pa., testified Thursday at a forum in the U.S. House of Representatives that was examining the preferential treatment big labor is receiving by the Obama administration and its allies on Capitol Hill, according to a press release from ABC.

Led by Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, and attended by Republican members of the committee, the forum, “A Culture of Favoritism: The Obama Administration’s Labor Agenda,” looked at how this special interest group is being rewarded for its political support at the expense of hard-working Americans, according to the release.

Worth testified about union-only project labor agreements and how his 400 employees are excluded from construction projects, even though their own tax dollars are being used to fund the projects.

“Currently,” Worth said in the release, “only 15.6 percent of America’s private construction workforce belongs to a union. This means PLAs discriminate against more than eight out of 10 construction workers, including all of my employees.

“In an industry facing an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent, we cannot afford to give some workers jobs simply because they carry a union card while forcing merit shop employees to be without work,” said Worth.

Joining Worth on the panel were Steve Forbes, president and CEO of Forbes and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine; Elaine Chao, former Secretary of Labor, 2001-2009; and Marissa Cuellar, a nurse at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston, Texas.