News Release: June 6, 2002A broad coalition representing schools, municipalities, contractors and businesses today urged members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee to vote against a bill that provides for the use of project labor agreements on state and local public construction projects.
"A-1926 (Egan, Malone) will limit competition, raise project costs, cost taxpayers and discriminate against nonunion contractors," said Philip Kirschner, executive vice president with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA).
NJBIA is a member of the New Jersey Coalition for Competitive Public Bidding Laws, whose members testified against a companion bill, S-1044 (Sweeney), which was defeated last week in the Senate Labor Committee.
NJBIA Vice President Jeff Stoller was among those scheduled to testify against A-1926 at today's Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing. The committee is slated to vote on the measure this Monday, June 10.
A-1926 and S-1044 would authorize state, county and local governments to negotiate union-only project labor agreements on construction contracts for schools, libraries, highways and other public projects.
"The State Supreme Court has made it clear that project labor agreements lessen competition and fail to protect taxpayers. We agree," Kirschner said. "This bill would shut out nonunion competition, giving unions a virtual monopoly on billions of dollars in public construction projects. Every public works project impacted by this order will cost taxpayers more."
The negative impact of project labor agreements is well documented.
