As Gov. Ned Lamont works to overcome resistance to his proposal for highway tolling from activists at the grass roots and skeptics and opponents in the General Assembly, he’s drawing criticism from nonunion building contractors who face the prospect of being barred from competing for construction work.
Lamont has assured organized labor in Connecticut that his administration will honor so-called project labor agreements, which are bargaining pacts that apply to construction projects.
Lamont sees labor on board his recently revised $21 billion transportation plan as a key component of his sales pitch to the legislature. On Tuesday, he showed the other side of his formula: business support for modernizing transportation systems in the state.
Executives at Aetna, pharmaceutical manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim, The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Stanley Black & Decker Inc., The Travelers Cos. Inc. and United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney said improved transportation is essential for economic growth in Connecticut.
Nonunion contractors say Lamont’s support of project labor agreements is favoritism based on politics, repayment to the Connecticut AFL-CIO for its early backing of his 2018 campaign. And they say a lack of competition for construction jobs by excluding nonunion companies drives up taxpayer costs.
“You’re discriminating against companies that are not affiliated with a union, preventing … an opportunity to compete for projects funded by taxpayers,” said Chris Fryxell, president of the Connecticut chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade association representing 207 companies.
He said 85% of Connecticut’s construction industry is nonunion.
Sal Luciano, president of the AFL-CIO, said use of project labor agreements is “important because it will protect taxpayers by eliminating costly delays due to labor conflicts or a shortage of skilled workers.”
“Project labor agreements are done on time and on budget and they also assure hiring is done locally and the next generation of construction workers are given on-the-job-training,” he said at a news conference last week with Lamont as the governor promoted his plan.
Fryxell said project labor agreement pledges by Lamont could run afoul of 2012 state law that allows for such agreements when it’s been determined on a “project-by-project” basis.
Decisions on projects around the state have not yet been made. “There’s no way they could have looked into whether it’s in the public’s best interest,” Fryxell said.
Lamont defended project labor agreements as a way to hire local workers, boost job-training and guarantee construction jobs that pay top dollar.
“It says there’s a condition that there are apprenticeship programs and more people in Connecticut can get the skills they need going forward,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “I’m doing everything I can to make sure that these are good-paying Connecticut jobs and a project labor agreement helps me do that.”
Fryxell said it’s not a question of prevailing wage, which is the rate of pay contractors and vendors must offer employees when doing business with a government agency.
“This is a large public project so prevailing wage applies,” he said. “Prevailing wage levels the playing field. Nonunion contractors are building things every single day and doing it extremely well.”
David Roche, president of the Connecticut State Building Trades Council, agreed that the issue is less about compensation and more about a project labor agreement’s requirements for hiring local and minority workers and veterans and using apprenticeship programs.
Public construction projects such as schools are just as likely to be contracted out to nonunion firms as companies with a unionized workforce, he said.
Fryxell said costs jump 15% to 20% when projects go out to bid and draw fewer responses as nonunion firms are eliminated, reducing competition among bidders. Project labor agreements also require costly, inefficient and “antiquated work rules” such as prohibitions against plumbers from doing the work of pipe fitters, he said.
Roche defended the work rules.
“A carpenter should do carpenter’s work and laborers do what laborers do. That’s how they’re trained,” he said.
And the argument that project labor agreements drive up costs is false, he said.
“We get beat up here every once in a while,” Roche said.
Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.
