Following up on this post, today’s Worcester Business Journal contains this editorial which highlights the problems with so-called “project labor agreements,” which often harm both workers and taxpayers. The article states:

“Fair and open competition in public bidding is the American way. Labor unions should compete on the same playing field as anyone else.”

The editorial continues that the U.S. Department of Labor notes 80 percent of the construction workforce in Massachusetts is nonunion. Yet, because the City of Worcester and other Massachusetts communities award only union contractors these public projects, public officials are denying the lion share of the state’s construction workforce a chance to work.

Read about the other multi-million (and sometimes multi-billion) dollar public projects Massachusetts taxpayers have been forced to overpay as a result of PLA’s, here.