NH firms files protest with GAO over PLA
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
10/07/09 1:54 PM EDT
UPDATE: “No local construction firms need apply,” Oct. 2
On Monday, a Concord, NH-based general contractor filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, alleging that the U.S. Department of Labor’s mandated use of a project labor agreement (PLA) for a jobs center in Manchester is discriminatory because 91 percent of the construction workers in New Hampshire don’t belong to a union. The company is asking GAO to put a stay on the bidding process until the PLA is removed.
PLAs discourage competition by requiring winning bidders to recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on that job, hire workers through the union hiring hall, obey restrictive apprenticeship and work rules, and contribute to union pension plans – even though their employees will never benefit unless they join a union.
Ken Holmes, president of North Branch Construction, told The Examiner that “one of the requirements of the bid is that it is subject to a PLA, which very specifically requires general contractors to use exclusively union workers. But virtually every major contractor and subcontractor in New Hampshire is non-union. This basically knocks all of us out of the ballgame. We believe it’s discriminatory and violates the federal Competition in Contracting Act.”
Like all federally financed projects, Holmes says, the project is already required to pay Davis-Bacon wages. “Problem is, none of our employees could work on the job if the PLA stays on the contract.”
Holmes says his employees are “outraged” at being shut out of a construction project in their own state. “We all pay our federal taxes. With unemployment skyrocketing in New Hampshire over the last year and a half, they’d like to be able to work on a project right here,” Holmes said. “PLAs are special interest handouts that deny taxpayers the accountability they deserve from government contracts.”
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