Laserfiche WebLink
under a PLA. In the New York study,we found that final bid costs for construction projects were <br /> higher under a PLA.2 <br /> This report explores the use of PLAs in the state of Washington,and the effects PLAs have on the <br /> number of bidders for projects. Non-union contractors contend that their competitive advantages <br /> are nullified by a PLA even as they comply with other mandates including prevailing wage laws. <br /> The result is that in practice,if not in principle, they are unable to bid competitively on jobs that <br /> have a PLA requirement. In turn, the absence of non-union bidders for PLA projects results in <br /> fewer bidders for projects, and with fewer bidders, the lowest bids come in higher than if non- <br /> union contractors had participated. We gathered data on the number of bidders for construction <br /> projects that did and not use a PLA or CWA in Washington. <br /> We find that the presence of a PLA reduces the average number of bidders for public construction <br /> projects in Washington by 0.84. Because the average number of bidders on construction projects <br /> in our sample is 4.6,PLAs reduce the number of bidders by 18.26 percent(0.84/4.6=18.26 percent). <br /> To separate the effects of PLAs on construction costs from other factors affecting construction <br /> costs, we use control variables to obtain our results. In this study, we control for the level of <br /> activity in the construction industry using the number of employed workers as a proxy for the <br /> strength of business activity. We also control for the size of the contract, assuming fewer <br /> contractors can provide the scale to complete larger contracts, using the value of the contract <br /> award,in 2018 dollars, as a proxy for project size. <br /> We utilize the findings from our previous studies to estimate the potential savings from not using <br /> a PLA on a construction project. We estimate that if the$4.91 billion of construction projects in <br /> our sample that were built with a PLA had been built without a PLA,taxpayers would have saved <br /> between$589 million and$879 million. <br /> 2 See http://www.beaconhill.org/PLAStudiesHomePage.htm for links to our prior work on PLAs. A bid <br /> cost is a project's base construction bid that includes site work and,for many projects,both Project Labor <br /> Agreements and non-Project Labor Agreements.The figure does not include the demolition costs. <br /> The Anticompetitive Effects of Project Labor Agreements on Public Construction in Washington State 2 <br />