Mandatory Union-Only PLA’s in the Bay State?

Scheme ‘Essentially Requires Bidders’ to ‘Use Union Laborers’

According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, in 2022, the average Massachusetts taxpayer forked over 11.5% of his or her income to state and local government officials. That’s a heavier overall state-local tax burden than in 36 of the other 49 states. 

But Big Labor legislators in the Bay State evidently believe 11.5% isn’t nearly burdensome enough. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have rushed this summer to send to union-label Gov. Maura Healey’s desk House Dockets 4722 and 4789. 

These two essentially identical measures have been sold to the public as “economic development” bond measures. 

But hidden away in both H.D.4722 and H.D.4789 was a provision that would gut a longstanding state policy requiring contracts on public works to be awarded to the firm that offers taxpayers the best value for their money. 

If such legislation becomes law, bureaucrats and union-boss puppet local politicians will therefore have a green light to require all contractors to submit to the terms of a Big Labor-controlled “project labor agreement” (PLA) in order to put forth bids on construction jobs their own taxes help finance. 

Mandate Needlessly Curtails ‘Open, Fair, Competitive, And Robust Bidding Process’ 

The roughly 82% of hardhats in Massachusetts who have chosen up to now, for an array of reasons, to work union-free would be forced to accept monopoly union control of their terms and conditions of employment, and also pay union dues or fees as a job condition, in order to take part in public works projects. 

Except in rare cases, public policy in Massachusetts is strongly biased in favor of union monopolies. Worst of all, it permits the termination of private-sector front-line employees for refusal to join or bankroll an unwanted union. 

But for at least a quarter of a century Massachusetts policy with regard to union-only PLA’s has been an important exception to the rule. 

In 1999, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court strictly interpreted Massachusetts’ public-bidding statute to sustain challenges to the awarding of PLAs to union bosses by bureaucrats or localities unless the awarder can establish that the deal actually advances the interests underlying the statute. 

Since then Bay State PLA schemes have regularly been overturned in court. 

Just this May, for example, Hampden Superior Court Judge Michael Callan blocked an anti-competitive PLA that the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission (SWSC) had imposed on a $325 million water-filtration project in Westfield, Mass. 

In a sharply worded ruling, the judge pointed out that the commissioners’ own consultant had warned them the PLA would delay the project and increase its costs by an estimated $15.5 million. 

Of course, delays and higher costs are only to be expected from a mandate that “unnecessarily curtails” an “open, fair, competitive, and robust bidding process.” 

“[F]or all intents and purposes,” explained the judge, “the PLA excludes open shops from bidding, as it essentially requires bidders to . . . use union laborers on the project.” 

Power Grab Would Take Taxpayers’ Interests Out Of the PLA Equation 

“By ruling against the union-label majority on the SWSC, Judge Callan stood up for the interests of taxpayers as well as union-free hardhats and their employers,” said National Right to Work Committee Vice President John Kalb. 

“But Big Labor politicians in Boston are now tripping over themselves to scuttle future legal challenges to union-only PLA’s in Massachusetts. 

“Just before this Newsletter edition went to press, Big Labor legislators in Massachusetts inserted the stealthy provision taking taxpayers out of the PLA equation by declaring the government need only show that such a mandate is somehow in the public’s interest into yet another measure: H.D.4804. This bill has been rubber-stamped by both chambers of the Legislature and appears to be headed Gov. Healey’s way. 

“On July 31, National Right to Work emailed a letter to Ms. Healey urging her to veto H.D.4804, which would effectively eliminate any requirement for government officials to show how a public-works deal would advance taxpayer interests. 

“In a Big Labor-dominated state like Massachusetts, all Right to Work battles are steeply uphill,” said Mr. Kalb. “But this is a fight we have to fight.”

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