Recognizing 19 Governors Who Stand for Fair & Open Competition
In this season of Thanksgiving, we'd like to take a moment to thank all the people who support MCA and our cause for fair and open competition. While four out of five construction workers in Massachusetts are not union members, they are often treated as second-class citizens by policy makers currying favor with organized labor. For those who have the courage and intellectual honesty to stand with merit shops, we thank you.
A recent example was the letter from 19 governors to the Biden Administration expressing opposition to the use of project labor agreements on large-scale federal projects. The letter makes excellent points that all public and private project owners should take to heart:
As governors, we support policies that ensure robust competition for taxpayer-funded construction projects that welcome all of America’s construction industry to compete to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure on an even playing field.
We aim to provide value to taxpayers as we partner with the federal government to deliver roads, bridges, communications, water, energy, and transportation systems safely, on time, and on budget, but we cannot deliver the best results with onerous and unnecessary constraints.
We call on you to be equitable in your treatment of America’s construction workers whether union or nonunion. In short, the proposed rule will undermine taxpayer investment in billions of dollars of forthcoming public works projects financed by the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act of 2021 and additional bipartisan legislation passed by Congress, all of which was signed into law free from language requiring or encouraging the use of PLAs.
