America's most notorious union-only project labor agreement (PLA), Boston's "Big Dig," will come to completion with the end of 2007. What a bittersweet day for citizens of Boston. The Associated Press puts it this way:
"Don't expect any champagne toasts."
As also noted by the AP, the Big Dig's history was "littered with wrong turns" such as a major tunnel leak in 2004, as well as the tragic death of a motorist in 2006.
Financially, the Big Dig sapped taxpayers for $14.8 billion, over five and a half times the original cost estimate of $2.6 billion.
This train wreck of a public construction project should serve as "exhibit A" of the gluttonous waste inherent in PLAs. Such projects are also a "lose-lose" for employees that wish to remain nonunion because they are blackballed from working, as well as for the taxpayers forced to foot the bill.
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unions
Does anyone here remember the 1969 SCOTUS ruling that unions may commit crimes including arson and murder in the name of union recruiting? This ruling occurred after union members broke into and burned a building being built by the non-union Altemose Construction Co. of Phila., PA. Don't tell union people about this.
I have written to the SCOTUS and asked them to overturn this ruling. So far, it hasn't done any good.