The Truth About Project Labor Agreements

this interview is a joke. PLA dont drive up the cost. this guy would like the publice to believe that he is put at a dissatvantage because he is not union. Have a couple of thing to say. the man has been giving it to the worker for the last 8 years with the bush dictatorship, and know the shoe is on the other foot you are pissing and moning about how its unfair. deal with it. second, the open shop dont have the skilled trained workforce to do these huge project that requier skilled labor. who do you want driving the pile for the new superstucture bridge. the guy you picked up off the steet in front od wal mart or home depot that all he knows is how to pick fruit or do you want a skilled tradesman that 90% chance he or she went through an apprenticeship for there craft. wages? you have to pay them the same. it is all public works and weather you are union or not the wage is the same. so what do you think the best value is for the same money, skilled worker or wal Mart. this guy dont want his workers joining the union, he dont want to let them see what working united as one is all about, he is afraid of loosing his good hands to better themselves. workers deserves and have the rifght to have the best they can, just as business, is that called capitalism? why do poeple come down on workers when they try an capitalize off there labor? we dont come down on business when they try. if you work in the trades as i do the best when it come to everthing from skilled workers, apprenticeship, health care, pension, working condition. you get that with the union trades. as for fox and all you anti union morons out there, who do yo think brought you the 8 hr day, overtime, vacation, state worker rights, labor day and so on. if is wasnt for workers standing togeter for the last 100 yrs all you idiots would still be working for food. pull your head out of your ass

PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS ARE ABOUT, SAFETY, HONESTY,JUSTICE AND PROFESSIONALISM FOR ALL ,AT UNION MADE CONSTRUCTION JOBSITES, AND PLACE OF WORK

TO SAY THAT I DON’T SUPPORT
( PLAs ) MEANS THAT I WILL STEP ON THE HANDS THAT BUILD AMERICA.

The last two comments are obviously from union workers who have been fed the same hogwash for years. They have no knowledge of the training we do at ABC and how our forces have become the most talented, competitive people in the nation. They finally have a president who was bought of by big labor to use as a crutch for their aggenda.

I have been in unions since 1979 so I have something to say that everyone should listen to. Unions are a joke! I left IBEW in 2004 and have been working non-union since. I am a hard working american who continues to remain employeed due to my experience and continued education. I work with other qualified co-workers doing a great job, making good wages and have excellent benefits. Most people in unions are sub-par workers. They know that no matter how bad of a worker they are, they will always have work. The Unions like these type of workers because they can control them and manipulate their thinking, thus continually making money off of their labor.

The Bicentennial Year was my first election. That year I had to join the Retail Clerks Union (now called something else) for my job as supermarket cashier. Every day I’d walk or hitchike home five miles only to find my mailbox filled with junk mail from the Union: “What We’re Doing With Your Dues To Elect Jimmy Carter”. I was a big President Ford man and I hated that my money was being used like that.
Now an Andy Stern crony is going to be appointed to the NLRB. What are PLAs but the “sweetheart deals to special interests” Obama campaigned against?

Aren’t these PLA’s illegal? How can one group be favored over others? Doesn’t this violate RICO by monopliazing business? With our tax monies no less? IF the unions are so “great”, why don’t they bid on a job like everyone else has to? Oh that’s right, because then the fat cat union bosses mihgt have to actually get off their duffs and try working for a living. Unions were once a proud concept that helped define today’s working environment. Now they are no more than a business on to themselves with no product to prodice other than securing their own existence. Workplace Federal laws long ago replaced the need for unions to “protect” their members, now they are a woeful joke, even amongst the members who can actually think for themselves.

Actually, the third poster (from New York’s Corrado Concrete Construction – http://www.luckbros.com) “forces” labor strife on Chula Vista. The primary purpose of the PLA is to have no picket lines in front of Chula Vista’s future building.

New York City?!? Get a grip.

everyone keeps hawking all these studies that show plas drive up costs but I have never seen one. Where are these studies published.

http://www.abc.org/plastudies

Start with the Beacon Hill Studies from MA, CT and NY. The other one I would read is the study for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

PLA is nothing more than a money laundering scheme created by our politions to repay big labor for their campaign contributions. As stated earlier the wages PW on the project are the same. It is the productivity that is the difference. The unions would surely bankrupt any non-union company who signs this agreement, thru low production standards.

Everything in life is a big circle.

Unions give huge money to Democrats. The Democrats give huge PLA projects to the unions. It is politics at it’s finest.

As a union member of 20 years, because it’s mandatory, I can tell you government and unions are an EXACT match. Inefficient, bloated, pompus, I can go on and on.

Where else in any business sector can you pay $1 and get back .25c in service? That’s called robbery in any other business, but in government and the unions you’re made to thank them that it didn’t cost more.

We need a TEA party to fix the unions, there are some great points like good training, work force, consistency.

But the bad points FAR out way them, corruption, miss use of union funds, bloated health programs, poor pensions, etc.

I hope the first commenter is skilled in something, because his spelling and grammar skills are atrocious.

Look, it’s real simple. Regardless of whether they drive up costs, PLA’s discriminate against over 80% of the workforce.

Yes, the country was once built by Unions. But we’re not living in the late 19th, early 20th century anymore. ABC has a spectacular apprenticeship program. I’ve worked with a couple construction firms now that have extremely talented guys. Your skill does not magically increase by signing a union card.

I’ve had great benefits at both companies and only out of work for a total of one week when the economy was severely weakened.

The unions did their job and had their day in the sun. That sun is setting now and the lazy bastards who get money off the backs of you idiots who work for them are the ones trying to hold you together.

Good job Lancaster. Hopefully the rest of the state will follow suit.

The above comment is ignorant but so much in life is. God help us if day ever comes when only the ABC is determining wage and benefits for the country. Power and privilege always come at the expense of truth and justice. The people of the ABC are not nice people!

I believe that we still have free speech in this country

I’m a card carrying member of a union and all I can say is it’s not as grand as they want to make it look.I worked non union on schools and had my benefits in my check every week and managed them well. had to join the union because of a PLA .the union gets my money and says that I need to be in for 5 years to get any of my retirement money .but the way they count a year it will take 9 years of paying the to get 5 years credit. and they lost all their money to Madoff… Now why would you put all of your money in one place ??? and I was told by the BA that if I got 20 years with the Union that I would have a $20,000 a year retirement…But It would take me 30 years to get 20 years credit…even so what is $20,000 a year going to be in 20 years??? the men that did 25 years with the union and retired are receiving $200 a month…. that a good reason for me to stay in…they are holding a gun to my money and saying that if you don’t stay in you won’t get any of it back…I’m a roofer in the northeast the BA told me that the average roofer get 1000 hours a year and the retirement requires us to get 1200 hours a year to get a full credit…penal wipping the men…and lets no go to the health car plan that cost $700 a month and covers nothing .or the fact that we only have 9 month of coverage…non union I’ll make $50,000 a year and union I’ll make $25,000… the quality of union work is low on average. because it don’t matter to them they will get a pay check and the attitude amongst them is who cares… with that said,not all union workers have that attitude…when your not union, you do it right and work hard or you don’t have a job…that what made America great. hard workers !!! Men and women with Pride!! not Unions…Unions are to protect the workers. take the money out of their hands and put it back in the workers hands and see if the big labor bosses still want to do the job….

I worked 8 years non union and 25 union. If it wasn’t for my union I would not have the things I have today. I see former coworkers from my non -union time and they struggle with healthcare and retirement issues. Someone always has to set the bar and that is unions. Over the last 30 years Unions have declined. By comparison, wages have become stagnant and healthcare costs have gone thru the roof. The uninsured families, like wise, have gone thru the roof while corporations and the 1% ers have taken over the country. Wake up, they are doing it right under your nose and here we are, working class people at each others throat. We are falling right into place. WAKE UP! Unions aren’t perfect but it’s all working class people have. Who really speaks for us or goes to bat for us. UNIONS!

To suggest that nonunion companies and workers are somehow inferior to union workers and produce an inferior product is absurd. The reality is that unions create mediocrity at a high price to the consumer.

PLA’s are clearly anti-competitive and nothing more that Obama’s way to buy votes. The greed and mediocrity of unions are what is destroying this country. It’s bankrupting our government and driving industry out of our country. Unions are no longer about “fair” wages. They’re about how much can I get by doing as little as I can.

These PLS’a are a joke. I worked and became a President of a company at a young age and started on the floor. If that had been a union shop I would still be on the floor and never risen to my current level. We are now 5 times as big and employ 60 more people at a good wage. I give each and every one of those employees training and opportunities to advance and it is not based on seniority it is based on who is more dedicated to improving themselves. This should be illegal, none of my tax dollars should be used in this manner. Vote the union lover out of office and all of his cronies. Disband the NLRB

The principles upon which our “CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC” is founded, is that each and every “AMERICAN” is a sovereign individual, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are the “RIGHT TO LIFE”, LIBERTY and the “PURSUIT of HAPPINESS”. Any individual has the right to participate in a union and to the contrary any individual has the right not to participate in a union; however, “NO” individual or collective union organization has the right to “PREVENT” an “INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGN AMERICAN” from pursuing His or Her Occupation because they do not wish to participate in a collective union organization!
That is “TYRANNY”, that is “COMMUNISM” and when the government abrogates it’s “CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY” to protect the “LIBERTY” and “FREEDOM” of “SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL AMERICANS” and instead, intervenes on behalf of a union because it is indebted to the graft and corruption provided by that union in order to influence the outcome of a political election that is not only “COMMUNISM”, that is “FASCISM”!”FASCISM on the other hand usually appears when “COMMUNISM” fails!
The only logical conclusion then, is that any Collective Union Organization is a “COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION and any individual who voluntarily participates in that “COMMUNIST UNION” is themselves a “COMMUNIST” and together they stand with determined destruction of our “RIGHT TO LIFE”, our “LIBERTY”, “OUR FREEDOM”, our “CONSTITUTION” and our “CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC”!
“GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH”, but “I” will never bow to the yoke of the “UNION COMMUNIST THUGS” or their “COMMUNIST UNION TYRANNY”!
Soon, very soon, the time approaches when we shall “CRY HAVOC, THEN LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR”! It’s going to get real ugly, I only hope I’m still alive to participate in this coming conflagration.