In a big win for taxpayers and free competition, a restrictive “Project Labor Agreement” (PLA) has been removed from a new request for bid on the proposed Tygart Elementary School in Carter County.
Formerly, in an action that amounted to a breech of free trade bidding on the school project, the Carter County School Board had inserted the PLA, which essentially required any contractor who bid on the project to either only hire union workers or to pay non-union workers at union rates.
This triggered a lawsuit on behalf of independent contractors who charged the PLA was designed to force all workers into a union while excluding all non-union contractors from bidding.
While that suit was still in process, a round of bids was opened where all exceeded the $12 million budget for the school. As a consequence, the local board voted to reduce project scope, remove the PLA, and to rebid against a new budget of only $10.5 million.
This is a win on a key Bluegrass Institute initiative: We oppose PLAs as inappropriate governmental interference with free market competition. PLAs bias bidding towards union contractors while running up costs for government projects without providing any extra return on investment.
For more on PLAs and why they are wrong for Kentucky, see Jim Water’s excellent column here.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Taxpayers save over $1.5 million as PLA in Carter County school project is rejected
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4 comments:
Hopefully this decision will be precedent-setting. Other school districts were watching closely what happened in Carter County to see if they, too, might be able to get by with such nonsense. So this decision by one district about one school has a statewide effect. Now, Kentucky's legislators need to move forward and eliminate prevailing wage. Hmmmm...I wonder how much we could reduce the already reduced $10.5 million elementary school project in Carter County if taxpayers didn't have to cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars just to satisfy a union-like wage.
PLAs and prevailing wage mandates are what government prosecutors call price fixing and price gauging when private companies rig competition and charge prices at levels higher than the general market. This is again a double standard. If government officials want to do it for their union supporters then it is okay. If private companies accomplish the same thing it is criminal. Oh yah!
Thank goodness the lights got turned on Carter County and at least a $1.5 million payback to unions for nothing.
RE: Liberty General and slol1's comments
Thank you for your viewpoints on this clear restrain of free trade.
A great victory for free markets! Maybe this is the beginning of a trend: the decline of unions in KY?
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