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Research on Government-Mandated Project Labor Agreements
Read academic studies and reports to learn more about the failure of union-only government-mandated PLAs to control construction costs, increase work opportunities, prevent construction delays and improve safety, productivity or quality on construction projects.
Great Scott: Projects Bid With and Without PLA Mandates Show PLAs Increase Costs and Reduce Competition
While researching the use of government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) in West Virginia in advance of Wednesday’s deadline for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) survey about a potential PLA mandate on a large-scale federal project in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., TheTruthAboutPLAs.com went back in time to revisit another real-world example of how discriminatory PLA [...]
Who Is Hill International and Why Does It Promote Government-Mandated PLAs?
Who is Hill International and why does it consistently support and promote anti-competitive and costly government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs)? In short, Hill International is a corporate PLA pimp. Read on to learn why this isn’t hyperbole. Many local, state and federal entities in charge of taxpayer-funded construction contracts are required by law or directed [...]
Reduced Competition Increases Costs
One fundamental economic principle is rarely wrong: Reduced competition increases costs. It is a fairly intuitive premise. Unfortunately, some government officials (often controlled by special interests) fail to grasp this basic economic concept. They often unwittingly—or even worse, knowingly—implement policies that unfairly cater to special interests or address both legitimate and erroneous public policy concerns at the [...]
Project Labor Agreements on California School Construction Raise Costs up to 15 Percent, Study Says
According to a new study released by the National University System Institute for Policy Research (NUSIPR), California school construction projects built using project labor agreements (PLAs) experienced increased costs of 13 percent to 15 percent, or $28.90 to $32.49 per square foot, compared to projects that did not use a PLA. Measuring the Cost of [...]
Beacon Hill Institute Responds to Attacks on Project Labor Agreement Research
Dr. David Tuerck, Executive Director of The Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Suffolk University, asked TheTruthAboutPLAs.com to post the following note and related correspondence to U.S. Congress in response to attacks by Dr. Peter Phillips, economics professor at the University of Utah, on BHI’s research on the impact of government-mandated [...]
Report Documents Construction Defects on PLA Projects
As part of our ongoing series publishing the truth about government-mandated projects labor agreements (PLAs), here is a chapter documenting Construction Defects on PLA Projects from Maury Baskin’s Government-Mandated Project Labor Agreements: The Public Record of Poor Performance (2011 Edition). V. Construction Defects on PLA Projects Many PLA projects have suffered from serious construction defects, [...]
Report Documents Construction Delays on PLA Projects
As part of our ongoing series publishing the truth about government-mandated projects labor agreements (PLAs), here is a chapter documenting Construction Delays on PLA Projects from Maury Baskin’s Government-Mandated Project Labor Agreements: The Public Record of Poor Performance (2011 Edition). IV. Construction Delays on PLA Projects Another argument often made in support of government-mandated PLAs [...]
Report Documents Reduced Competition on PLA Projects
As part of our ongoing series publishing the truth about government-mandated projects labor agreements (PLAs), here is a chapter documenting Reduced Competition on PLA Projects from Maury Baskin’s Government-Mandated Project Labor Agreements: The Public Record of Poor Performance (2011 Edition). III. Reduced Competition on PLA Projects According to a number of published sources, a contributing [...]
Report Documents Increased Costs on PLA Projects
As part of our ongoing series publishing the truth about government-mandated projects labor agreements (PLAs), here is a chapter documenting Increased Costs on PLA Projects from Maury Baskin’s Government-Mandated Project Labor Agreements: The Public Record of Poor Performance (2011 Edition). II. Increased Costs on PLA Projects Proponents of PLAs frequently claim that such agreements will [...]