Union-Only Port Terminal Suspends Operations
Committee President Mark Mix: “If I were a Leatherman dockworker, I certainly wouldn’t count on Longshore Union bosses to show any flexibility” to get the terminal reopened and “save my job.”
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) points out that Massachusetts’ infamous Central Artery Tunnel union-only project, known as the “Big Dig”, is threatening the solvency of the state of Massachusetts.
The ABC notes:
Despite receiving federal funding, the Big Dig was subject to a union-only project labor agreement (PLA) that required project contractors and subcontractors agree to recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on the job, use the union hiring hall to obtain workers, pay union wages and benefits, and obey the union’s work rules, job classifications and arbitration procedures. . . .
This union-only funding orgy was estimated to cost $2.8 billion dollars, but costs have exploded to over $22 billion.
Union-only jobs cost taxpayers millions of dollars every year — but as in the case of the “Big Dig” — millions easily add up to billions.
Committee President Mark Mix: “If I were a Leatherman dockworker, I certainly wouldn’t count on Longshore Union bosses to show any flexibility” to get the terminal reopened and “save my job.”
... States that continuously lacked Right to Work protections for employees from 2012-23 lost a net total of $2.05 trillion in cumulative AGI solely as a consequence of domestic out-migration of taxpayers during that 11-year period.
One of the key goals of the U.S. Department of Labor since President Donald Trump’s second term commenced in January 2025 has been to expand the number of apprenticeships in America to “at least a million.”