Bad for taxpayers. Bad for employees. Bad for business.
Project Labor Agreements are pre-hire collective bargaining agreements used mainly on public projects that require all contractors, whether they are union or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization and union dues in order to work on a government funded construction project. If a non-union company decides to bid on a project that is governed by a PLA, they can be forced to pay union dues, use a union hiring hall for the labor on the project, subject their employees to collective bargaining tactics, and pay union wages.
Project Labor Agreements (PLAs), authorized by the National Labor Relations Act, have been around since the 1930’s. Today, only around 13% of construction workers are in a union. Outdated PLA laws, therefore, are providing unions with a near monopoly on public projects using a PLA, leading to higher costs for taxpayers and less efficient projects.
Instead of opening a project to the most qualified bidders in the field, a PLA limits the competition to only union firms or the very few, if any, non-union companies who are willing to subject themselves to forced unionization.
Project Labor Agreements restrict competition, drive up prices, reduce employee freedoms, and discriminate against non-union companies.