A dangerous game is being played. From the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. website come these two excerpts:
President Barack Obama Repeals Executive Order Prohibiting Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on Federal and Federally Funded Construction
On February 6, 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13502, which repeals Executive Order 13202 and encourages federal agencies to require PLAs on federal and federally funded construction projects in excess of $25 million.
And a bit more:
Between 2001 and 2007, Executive Order 13202 ensured that at least $123.1 billion worth of federal construction projects was bid without discriminatory and wasteful union-only PLAs. The actual value of construction projects protected by Executive Order 13202 is exponentially larger, as the above figure does not include 2008 federal construction put in place spending or state and local construction spending from 2001-2008 that received federal funding or assistance that was protected by Executive Order 13202. It is estimated that free and open competition saved American taxpayers between 10 percent and 20 percent on federal construction spending and provided women, minorities and other qualified craft professionals the opportunity to work in their communities.
Granted, the ABC, Inc. has a dog in this fight -- most independent contractors are non-Union shops and want to stay that way in order to remain competitive. Still, locking large projects into Union-only shops is a waste of our money -- as the article said, 10 to 20% of the cost of large Federal construction projects.
The second item is the ABC, Inc. position and it amplifies the first:
ABC strongly opposes union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) on public construction projects.
Union-only PLAs drive up the cost of construction by reducing competition for the work and effectively exclude merit shop contractors from working on projects paid for by their own tax dollars.
A union-only PLA is a contract that requires that the project be awarded only to contractors and subcontractors who agree to:
- recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on that job
- use the union hiring hall to obtain workers
- obtain apprentices exclusively from union apprenticeship programs
- pay into underfunded and mismanaged union benefit plans
- obey costly, restrictive and inefficient union work rules
Sure, before the popularization of the automobile, workers were stuck in one place and were at the whims of the business owners. The Unions were important than as they gave bargaining powers to the workers that allowed them to get a fair salary. Now, the Unions have fallen victim to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy and exist only to perpetuate their own existence. This is going to bite Barry in the ass as he is giving these people too much power. 2010 and 2012 should be interesting from the view of election security and honesty. Thought the 2008 election was corrupt? Just wait...
