Today, Governor Maura Healey signed into law the Economic Development bill that includes
language permitting (though not requiring) the use of project labor agreements on public construction in Massachusetts. MCA has issued the following statement:
Statement of the Merit Construction Alliance on Signing of Legislation to Legalize the Use of Discriminatory Project Labor Agreements.
Despite all the rhetoric around inclusion and opportunity, our state government has erected a new systemic barrier to access and opportunity when it should be tearing them down. The new law sends a clear message that the governor and legislature endorse discrimination against those tradespeople who choose not to join organized labor, which in Massachusetts is 82 percent of the construction workforce. For those who truly care about inclusion, remember that most minority- and women-owned construction firms are merit shops that are unfairly disadvantaged by PLAs. PLAs create insurmountable hurdles that prevent merit shops from competing and winning on a level playing field, thus creating a monopoly for organized labor.
Background:
· PLAs are discriminatory, anti-competitive, anti-taxpayer and often take longer to complete. Furthermore, a PLA will dramatically reduce the available labor pool by blocking 82.2 percent of the Massachusetts construction workforce that is merit shop, or non-union from working on the project. (Source: Union Membership and Coverage Database from the CPS at Unionstats.com) Across New England, union members comprise merely 9.58 percent of the construction workforce.
· A PLA will only benefit organized labor by artificially limiting competition by stopping merit shop contractors from bidding. Trade unions and signatory contractors would have a monopoly on this project, which would lead to increased project costs to taxpayers with no meaningful benefits.
· By requiring all workers on PLA projects to be union members governed by their respective collective bargaining agreements, PLAs introduce inefficiencies and lead to turf wars among various union trade groups claiming to “own” the same work.
· A study of Connecticut school construction found PLAs raised the final costs by 19.84 percent. (The Effects of Project Labor Agreements on School Construction in Connecticut, by Burke and Tuerk, January 2020.) "Municipal leaders everywhere need to rethink the whole idea of entering into PLAs for school and other construction projects, in that PLAs result in spending more tax dollars than necessary on these projects and thus reduce the number of projects that can be built."
David G. Tuerck, Executive Director, Beacon Hill Institute
· In May 2024, the Springfield (Mass.) Water and Sewer Commission was blocked by a court order from imposing a PLA on a $250 million water treatment plant construction project. Bids for electrical and masonry were won by merit shops and combined, the bids were more than $15 million lower than the most competitive union-shop bids. Had the PLA moved forward, Springfield water ratepayers would have been paying at least $15 million more for the same project.
· Merit shops will not bid on PLA projects, which require them to use temporary union workers rather than their full-time, regular employees.
· A PLA requires contractors and subcontractors to pay union-established wages and fringe benefits, which can be higher than the state Prevailing Wage rate or Davis-Bacon rate. A PLA further requires project contractors to pay contributions to the established union employee benefits funds (i.e. pension and annuity, health and welfare, vacation, apprenticeship and training funds), some of which are not included in the Prevailing Wage Rates. Open shop contractors already provide their employees with such benefits, artificially driving up the open shop contractor’s costs of performance.
· Thus, the PLA effectively prevents a merit shop contractor from submitting a competitive bid or receiving the award of the contract. The PLA artificially drives up the merit contractors’ cost of performance by forcing them to bid the work without being able to use their own employees to perform the majority of the work, and by compelling them to pay duplicate benefits to the unions beyond those they are already paying their employees.
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