PLAs increase the cost of taxpayer-funded construction.

By excluding open-shop companies from bidding, PLAs increase costs on taxpayers by reducing competition and effectively creating a union monopoly. Because union companies and their employees make up only 20 percent of the construction industry in Massachusetts, PLAs deprive taxpayers of competition from the remaining 80 percent of the industry and the cost savings associated with competitive bidding.

Studies and real-life examples demonstrate this point. When the City of Fall River decided on an ambitious five school building project, it incorporated a union-only provision into the project. MCA sued while the city opened bids from only union contractors. After the bids repeatedly came in over budget and as a result of intense public pressure, the Mayor threw out the provision. The schools were re-bid, the number of bidders nearly doubled and the lowest bids dropped by as much as 20 percent - saving Fall River taxpayers millions of dollars..
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Boston's Big Dig is billions of dollars over budget, and the city's new convention center was tens of millions of dollars over budget. Both had a PLA, and a shortage of competition caused by it has been cited as contributing to both budget overruns.

Studies by the Beacon Hill Institute, an independent think tank, and the Worcester Municipal Research Bureau, an independent watchdog group, verified that PLAs increase public construction costs. Studies of other states and of federal construction spending reached the same conclusion.

PLAs discriminate against the vast majority of Massachusetts construction workers.

Open-shop companies employ four out of five construction workers in Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. PLAs discriminate against those workers by preventing their employers from even bidding on a project. A cruel irony of PLAs is that they deny opportunity to workers whose taxes are helping to fund public construction projects.

The public opposes PLAs.

A nationwide survey conducted by Zogby International revelead the public's "...overwhelming rejection of project-labor agreements for public works projects, with 56% agreeing that rules requiring states and municipalities to grant contracts to unionized construction companies amounts to discrimination against the 80% of construction workers who are not unionized. Just three-in-ten (31%) favor these agreements."

PLAs do not achieve standardization of wages or labor harmony.

Wages for all public construction work in Massachusetts are already set by the state's so-called Prevailing Wage Law, which is enforced by the Attorney General.

One of the main arguments for PLAs is that they ensure labor harmony. But carpenters went on strike during the San Francisco airport expansion project, despite the existence of a PLA. In striking down a PLA in Massachusetts, a Superior Court judge said PLAs are not necessary to ensure labor harmony.

In truth, the real and only purpose of PLAs is to shore up dwindling union membership, a fact readily acknowledged by the AFL-CIO.