SACRAMENTO, CA -- It’s no secret that last year’s Democratic landslide in California has turned into a huge bonanza for the state’s powerful labor unions. The unions’ legislative wish-list, blocked for years by Republican governors, is now becoming a reality. Currently, a slew of union-backed bills are sailing through the pro-union
Democratic Legislature, including measures that would effectively increase the state’s prevailing wage,
permanently reduce employers’ ability to maintain flexible work schedules, force unionization on charter
school employees, and discourage membership in non-union organizations.

Less well known is the increasing success that unions are having at the local level. Local governments are
adopting "project labor agreements" (PLAs) at an alarming rate. PLAs funnel government construction
contracts exclusively to firms which use only union labor. They function like the 1930s Davis-Bacon Act,
which mandated union wages on public-works projects and excluded most minority contractors. Studies show that
PLAs increase costs because unionized firms are comparatively less efficient than non-union firms.
Further, PLAs not only prevent non-union workers from competing against their unionized counterparts, they
ensure that the benefits of such competition never accrue to taxpayers who are being asked to finance
billions of dollars in public construction projects.

In this year alone, PLAs involving huge public-works projects have been approved in cities across
California. In February, the board of the San Diego County Water District approved a PLA for a $700 million
emergency storage facility. In March, the Los Angeles school board unanimously adopted a PLA that, according
to the Los Angeles Times, "requires contractors receiving work under [a voter-approved] $2.4 billion
school bond to put only union members on the job and provide them with health and pension benefits."

Earlier this month, the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners voted to negotiate a $1.4 billion PLA for
expansion projects at the Oakland airport and harbor. In its editorial criticizing the vote, the Oakland
Tribune pointed out that a PLA would reduce competition by excluding non-union construction firms
-- which make up 80 percent of the construction industry -- from working on Port projects. Further, the
PLA would especially hurt minority- and women-owned firms because most of them are non-union. The Tribune also noted that the Hispanic Contractors Association and the Bay Area Black Contractors Association oppose the PLA.

Non-union companies, unsurprisingly, are outraged by this anti-competitive trend. Kevin Dayton, an official
with the non-union Golden Gate chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, notes that:
"Project labor agreements are a way for unions to gain market share in construction without having to earn it.
They’re also a way for unions to organize construction workers without going through the inconvenience of
getting their approval. It’s easier to use the political process by negotiating PLAs directly with the
government."

In its assault on employers, non-union workers, and the taxpaying public, big labor is destroying basic
freedoms: the freedom to contract, the freedom to work, and the freedom to associate. In June, the California
Supreme Court will hear a case having to do with the legality of PLAs. One hopes that the court will rule in
favor of liberty and against special-interest monopoly.

-- Lance T. Izumi