By J.R. GAYLOR
Guest Columnist
In Matt McNally’s recent guest column, he misrepresents what PLAs are and their negative impact on taxpayers. Mr. McNally is referring to House Bill 1024 authored by Jerry Torr, a political opponent of his, so others can judge the motives of Mr. McNally misrepresenting the bill.
Union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) are a scheme to limit free and fair competition and transparency in bid selections on public bids in Indiana. This scheme, created by big labor bosses, would eliminate over 90 percent of the contractors and construction employees in Hamilton County in favor of union-only bidders. What do you think would happen to prices for public buildings if bidding was arbitrarily restricted to only 10 percent of the market?
The bill states that a construction contract cannot discriminate against a bidder if they choose to become signatory to a union contract or if they choose not to become union. Both union contractors and non-union contractors are protected and can compete to provide the taxpayer with bang for their buck.
Mr. McNally also uses scare tactics to suggest contractors would cut corners on their training and safety programs without PLAs. The elected officials in Hamilton County have not, and never will, accept bids from unqualified bidders.
Finally, Mr. McNally raises the question of this bill eliminating local control by the state preventing union-only schemes. There is the argument that the state has an over-riding interest to protect all Hoosier taxpayers from abuses of local control such as in this case of bidding discrimination.
Public bid scrutiny of all contractors about their training, safety, performance, and best pricing is the best criteria for the interests of taxpayers, regardless of labor affiliation.