Concord Company Complains About Project Labor Agreements

The question is who gets to build a 35 million dollar Job Corps Center in Manchester—a project 9 years in the making.

Last February the Department of Labor opened up the bidding process.

And North Branch Construction decided it wanted the 160 thousand square foot construction job.

“We were all over it.”

Ken Holmes is the company’s president.

“It should come as no surprise that we’re in a very tough economy right now and North Branch has certainly been affected like just about everybody in the construction trade. We have had layoffs, our volume is down, our profitability is significantly down.”

Holmes figured if North Branch could get this federal contract, he could put a good number of people back to work.

But the Department of Labor wants this job be built under a Project Labor Agreement.

And that means North Branch, a non-union shop, would have to use union labor and pay into the union’s health and benefits plans.

But Holmes doesn’t want to be forced to use union labor, which means he’d stand no chance of getting the job.

That, he says, is discriminatory.

And Holmes insists he’s not anti-union.

“In fact we use union sub-contractors all the time, but the facts are the facts and we do work predominantly in New Hampshire and most firms in New Hampshire are non-union so this really is about giving us the opportunity to bid a project in our own backyard.”

Holmes complained to the local chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, ABC, and they took it to their national office outside of Washington DC.

Ben Brubeck is ABC’s Director of Labor and State Affairs.

He says these Project Labor Agreements are simply a way for the Obama Administration to curry favor with organized labor.

“Organized labor knows that PLAs cut competition from non-union competitors that are quality, good workers that build these projects all the time, so they need a government scheme to funnel work their way.”

Although PLAs go back to before World War II, recently, Presidents have played political ping-pong with them.

The first President Bush banned them.

President Clinton brought them back.

The second President Bush banned them again.

President Obama has brought them back.

His Executive Order does not, however, require Federal agencies use PLAs.

It just urges them.

Dale Belman is a Professor of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University.

He calls PLAs very good management tools that provide advantages to building owners. …especially for large projects.

“one of these is …..essentially a guarantee if you sign a project labor agreement, you will have the workers you need for this project when you need them, and project delays are a big issue in construction and getting things done on time is a big issue.”

Project delays cost money.

And even in his Executive Order, President Obama mentions PLA’s increased efficiencies and cost savings.

Those who oppose PLAs have many examples of poorly run, overly expensive projects.

Those who support them like to point to private industries like Toyota, which has used PLAs to build its plants here in the US.

Tom Owens is with the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department.

“For ABC and North Branch Construction to say that PLAs are just a political payback to unions and that they’re wasteful and they inflate costs, then Toyota must be some of the stupidest business people in the world, because they use project labor agreements all the time and they’re beating the brains out of their competitors in terms of their construction costs.

Toyota, which uses non-union labor to build its cars, confirms it uses PLAs, but would not say how much money they save doing it.

North Branch Construction’s complaint has gone to the Government Accounting Office.

The GAO has 100 days to investigate whether the PLA violates US laws or regulations.

If it finds a violation, the GAO would recommend how the Department of Labor could fix the problem.

If the GAO’s decision doesn’t go the way the builders want, they’ve haven’t ruled out taking the issue to court.

In the meantime, the Manchester Job Corps center project could be put on hold.

For NHPR News, I’m Mark Bevis.