November 25, 2009 – 12:46 pm
Not to be outdone by their neighbors in Chula Vista, San Diego residents – led by City Councilman Carl DeMaio – kicked off their campaign to bring fair and open competition to San Diego’s city contracting. Construction stakeholders gathered with Councilman DeMaio to start the drive to gather the 96,000 signatures needed to put the [...]
November 24, 2009 – 11:19 am
Last Tuesday (11/17) Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann signed a project labor agreement (PLA) for a $5.5 billion rail transit project. (Click here to read the Mayor’s “State of Rail Transit” statement from 10/29 for background on this project, which has been in the planning stages for years.) In an effort to avoid the stigma attached [...]
November 24, 2009 – 6:35 am
Today, Lucas County (Ohio) Commissioners will discuss an agenda item, “Incorporating Project Labor Agreements into Bidding Specifications for all County-Supported Projects.” (Download PDF). Led by Commissioner Ben Konop, this sop to Big Labor is an attempt to require PLAs on all Lucas County projects. 11/25 Update: Maggie Thurber reports that the Commissioners delayed the vote until [...]
November 20, 2009 – 3:15 pm
There is an update to a TheTruthAboutPLAs.com blog post from November 19 titled, “PLAs Rocked Plymouth Studio.” The post highlighted an op-ed by ABC Massachusetts Chapter Chairman Jerry Simmer of the same title that was published by the Boston Herald on November 17. Through a letter to the editor in the Boston Herald and comments [...]
November 19, 2009 – 1:36 pm
In a November 18 op-ed in the Boston Herald titled, “PLA Rocked Plymouth Studio,” ABC Massachusetts Chapter Chairman Jerry Simmer highlights how the use of project labor agreements (PLAs), and the increased costs that come along with them, may have killed the development of a new Plymouth Rock Studio project in Plymouth, MA. As Mr. [...]
November 18, 2009 – 1:02 pm
Commonwealth Foundation fellow Adam Cole published a great commentary discussing wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements (PLAs) on November 17 titled, “Pennsylvania: An Unequal Employer” While this commentary covers many of the main arguments against these Big Labor handouts, that government-mandated PLAs increase construction costs and discriminates against women, minorities and nonunion construction workers, it [...]
November 17, 2009 – 2:33 pm
A group of building and construction trade unions has filed a motion to intervene in the ABC Heart of America Chapter’s lawsuit to force Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and Attorney General Chris Koster to enforce the 2007 “Fairness in Public Construction Act,” which prohibits government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) on public projects. Here’s a glimpse [...]
November 16, 2009 – 4:28 pm
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review also voiced it’s opposition to wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements in a November 16 editorial titled, “Blunting Big Labor.” Blunting Big Labor Monday, November 16, 2009 Kudos to Ken Holmes for stopping in its tracks taxpayer-funded political payback to organized labor. Mr. Holmes is president of nonunion North Branch Construction in [...]
November 16, 2009 – 10:52 am
In a November 16 editorial titled, “Costly PLAs Must Be Ended,” the Asbury Park Press weighs in on the project labor agreement (PLA) controversy. The paper calls on Governor-elect Chris Christie to fulfill his campaign pledge to end the use of costly and discriminatory PLAs on public construction in New Jersey. Here is an excerpt: [...]
November 13, 2009 – 2:41 pm
After John Stossel, the investigative journalist famous from his work on ABC’s 20/20, appeared yesterday on FNC’s Your World with Neil Cavuto to talk about President Obama’s push to use union labor for big federal construction projects via Executive Order 13502 — and the related controversy surrounding the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) decision to cancel its [...]
