There was a distributing development in Santa Fe, N.M., on Feb. 29, when the city council quietly adopted a policy requiring community workforce agreements (CWAs) on all projects costing more than $500,000. A community workforce agreement is no different than a wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreement (PLA); it just goes by another name. Washington, [...]
By Andy Conlin
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Tagged ABC Newsline, local legislation, New Mexico, Open Competition, PLAs, PLAs are political payoffs to union leaders, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Increase Costs, Project Labor Agreements, State Legislation, Union-only PLAs harm local workers
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March 30, 2012 – 12:01 pm
Two taxpayer-funded bridge projects in Mass. illustrates the stark contrast between the benefits of fair and open competition versus anti-competitive and costly government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) advanced by well-connected special interests. The Boston Globe published a scathing editorial opposed to a PLA mandate on the $260 million reconstruction of the Longfellow Bridge in Mass. (“Patrick shouldn’t bar [...]
By Ben Brubeck
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Tagged Big Dig, Boston Globe, Editorial, Gov. Patrick, Longfellow Bridge, Massachusetts, PLAs, PLAs are political payoffs to union leaders, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Increase Costs, Project Labor Agreements, Strikes, UMASS
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March 30, 2012 – 10:06 am
Last week, we covered the numerous project labor agreement (PLA)-related events that have occurred in Connecticut in recent weeks. On Friday, March 23, Meriden Record-Journal op-ed writer Eric Cotton authored a strong piece urging the city not to require a wasteful and discriminatory PLA on two future school construction projects. Here are the highlights from his [...]
March 21, 2012 – 12:39 pm
Connecticut has seen a buzz of activity and hearings relating to wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements (PLA) within the last week or so. Here is the recap. On March 10, a public forum to discuss whether a PLA mandate is appropriate for two school projects that are expected to cost approximately $200 million was [...]
March 19, 2012 – 12:25 pm
There was a significant legal victory for taxpayers and merit shop construction firms in New York recently. As we reported in 2011, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYS DOT) implemented a project labor agreement (PLA) requirement on a highway reconstruction and bridge replacement project near Exit 122 on Route 17 in Orange County, [...]
At a special meeting this morning (Tuesday, March 13), the Ventura County Board of Supervisors rejected (on a 2-2-1 vote) a motion from the board chairman to require contractors to sign a project labor agreement (PLA) oriented toward the demands of the Tri-Counties Building and Construction Trades Council in order to work on a $250 [...]
By Kevin Dayton
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Tagged ABC California, California, Hospital Construction, Kevin Dayton, local legislation, Open Competition, PLAs, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Increase Costs, Project Labor Agreements, Union-only PLAs harm local workers, Ventura County
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On March 6, when Sacramento City Councilman Robert King Fong made the motion to the Sacramento City Council for approval of a new $391 million arena for the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team, he generally read the posted agenda item verbatim, but then tacked on an additional, obviously pre-prepared provision out of nowhere: …and lastly, [...]
By Andy Conlin
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Tagged ABC California, Ballot Initiative, California, Kevin Dayton, local legislation, Open Competition, PLAs are political payoffs to union leaders, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Discriminate, PLAs Increase Costs, Sacramento, Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Kings, Union-only PLAs harm local workers
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The first government-mandated project labor agreement (PLA) in California (following the Boston Harbor decision at the U.S. Supreme Court) was imposed in the spring of 1994 by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors for a county hospital construction project. Last year, unions managed to squeak out (on a 3-2 vote) their first PLA for [...]
By Kevin Dayton
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Tagged ABC California, California, Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, Editorial, Hospital Construction, Kevin Dayton, local legislation, Op-Ed, Open Competition, PLAs, PLAs are political payoffs to union leaders, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Discriminate, PLAs Increase Costs, Project Labor Agreements, The Politics of PLAs, Ventura County
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This story is not unusual in California nowadays: an ambitious elected official is tangled up in a bizarre personal incident (see Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, Wife of California Treasurer, Acknowledges Substance Abuse, Affair – Contra Costa Times/Bay Area News Group – February 14, 2012). But this case is noteworthy from the perspective of TheTruthaboutPLAs.com because the elected [...]
February 23, 2012 – 5:52 pm
Last week, the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority (MWAA) gave Big Labor Bosses a generous Valentine’s Day gift. On Wednesday, MWAA passed a resolution adopting a new policy needlessly favoring contractors that submit proposals promising to use a union project labor agreement (PLA) to construct Phase 2 of the $2.8 billion Silver Line metro extension project [...]
By Ben Brubeck
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Tagged ABC Virginia, Metro Washington Airport Authority, MWAA, PLAs, PLAs are political payoffs to union leaders, PLAs Cut Competition, PLAs Increase Costs, Project Labor Agreements, Silver Line, State Legislation, Union-only PLAs harm local workers, Virginia
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