In today’s Rutland Herald there’s a piece called Bridge agreement concerns Vt. firms. What’s the concern?
A labor agreement pending in New York would virtually exclude Vermont contractors from landing work on one of the biggest infrastructure projects in recent memory, according to a trade organization that represents more than 150 firms in the Vermont construction industry.
Adopting such an agreement for the $75 million Lake Champlain bridge replacement project, according to Cathy Voyer, executive vice president of Associated General Contractors of Vermont, would force contractors to play by union rules, and effectively preclude this state’s non-union shops from bidding on the work.
The piece goes on to note that:
Unionized companies represent about 5 percent of Vermont’s construction industry, Voyer said. “If you’re not a union contractor, then you have to agree to change your employment practices to either become a union contractor or allow the union to take control of your employees,” Voyer said. “It basically requires contractors to grant union officials monopoly bargaining power over all their employees.”
What’s at issue here? Project Labor Agreements.
What does a PLA do? It defines acceptable wages and benefits for a given job. It’s a way of ensuring that when we put civic money into a big project that it provides real and meaningful benefit to the people who work on that project.
See, if you read this piece, it looks as though the plan being discussed will exclude non-union shops from participating.
Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t. It merely requires them to hold their employment standards to a certain level. This makes for a better bid process, because it prevents the contractors with good and solid labor practices from losing out to other companies which will just go for really low bids and pay their employees lower wages and benefits.
The most interesting thing, however, is the tacit admission here that union benefits and wages are better than non-union ones. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any fuss at all over this.
of how and why union environments have been splendid examples of how distribution of wealth happens. By forcing the big contractors to make sure the person actually doing the work gets an adequate wage, more money goes back to Vermont towns to be spent in local businesses… Our economy is stimulated at a higher rate… taxes are paid.. woo hoo we all win.
The other benefit is that we attract higher quality and probably better trained and experienced individual workers to build the bridge. I know there are union members who travel the country doing these jobs, and are expert in the field. I am not sure how many Vermont companies have that much depth of experience, but my guess is few. Maybe this is just a stab at protecting the rights of the Ireland brothers to increase their monopoly???
It’s a project that involves federal money which dictates scale needs to be paid… been that way I suspect for a long time. A wage boost for Vermonters is a bad thing??
Although I am by no means a reflexive supporter of all unions, there is no denying that in a union setting, employees get more of the money than they do under non-union settings.
If you, as a contractor, have a labor cost-advantage for a long period of time, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you make your bid lower in the same amount as your labor advantage. I’d guess that half to 75% of the difference is kept by the company and paid to management.
If forced to immediately raise wages for workers, they would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to existing unionized firms if they factor in their normal management fees…in other words, this requirement redistributes income from the managers to the workers. Thus the vociferous complaints from the owners of the companies, and the valid worry that they would not be able to compete for the work.
There is pain for the middle management tier in this scenario, and these people are not exactly millionaires. But it’s reasonable public policy to prevent a rush to the bottom for critical skilled work like “bridge building”. We don’t want the cheapest bid here, if that involves less qualified people. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the sheer existence of a union creates greater qualification, but those who worship at the altar of the market should recognize quickly that shops with higher wages will attract the better people on average.
Contracting is one of those industries that typically flourishes in an environment where no one is looking too closely at hiring, firing and compensation practices. They’re really not going to want to give-up that “casual” status-quo, even if it means in the long-run that the workforce will represent a more skilled labor pool…and therefore a better product. They see this as the narrow edge of the wedge which may bring with it greater interest in unionizing within Vermont. In short; it’s a threat to future profits.
In reality, the unions in Vermont, specificaly the Vermont Building Trades support having a Project Labor Agreement on the bridge. In fact the Iron Workers union is projecting that a PLA will allow them to get work on the bridge for local folks. Mind you, as things stand, many of their Vermont members are currently compelled to travel out-of-state to find employment.
And at the end of the day, when we are using public money to build bridges, it only makes sense that we make sure workers are paid a fair wage and recieve fair benifits. Otherwise the project in question creates even move cost to the state (be it Vermont, New York, or the Feds), in that many workers still qualify for state and federal social programs such as food stamps, healthcare, home heating assistance, etc..
Dave Van Deusen, Vermont AFL-CIO
Raw story has a great and true comment that the state Dem’s need to hear…
Why is it we never get into the face of these liars whether on Vt Yankee or climate change or pretty much a lot of stuff going on — Dean to Dem’s Get A spinal transplant of lose your governing. This applies to all and every state.
http://rawstory.com/2010/02/ho…