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Owners, Contractors & Construction Users
- Project Labor Agreements reduce uncertainty inherent in large-scale
- construction projects by establishing all terms and expectations up
- front and creating a framework for cooperation among all groups working
- on the project. By adopting a labor-management model that fosters
- jobsite efficiencies and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of qualified
- workers, PLAs keep a project on schedule, avoiding costly delays. This
- also allows parties to more accurately predict labor costs and
- production timetables, which means more accurate bidding and lower
- overall costs. PLAs also offer direct cost savings through streamlined
- safety procedures, avoiding renegotiations, setting work schedules to
- keep costs low, and using expedited dispute resolution procedures.
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PLA users
- PLA users also highlight the economic benefits of having immediate
- access to a highly trained, highly productive workforce. Workers who
- have gone through the joint union-contractor apprenticeship programs
- have top-notch training in safety and the crafts, leading to
- higher-quality work and fewer job-site accidents, which saves money in
- the long run. With a PLA in place, contractors and subcontractors must
- compete on the basis of who can best train, equip and manage a
- construction crew to create the highest-quality product, instead of who
- can find the cheapest workforce. Contractors and owners also note that
- PLAs increase the accuracy of bids by weeding out low-quality and
- inconsistent subcontractors.
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Opponents of Project Labor Agreements
- Opponents of Project Labor Agreements have argued that PLAs increase
- project costs, but studies by UCLA, Cornell and other leading academics
- have concluded that there is simply no evidence to back up this
- conclusion . In fact, most PLA users speak to the economic benefits of
- using PLAs that contractors and owners have recognized for the past
- three-quarters of the century. PLAs have since been used regularly by
- both private and public entities since the great dam projects of the New
- Deal. Today, large, companies such as Toyota, Disney, and Bechtel
- choose to use PLAs for their private construction projects, recognizing
- that emphasizing quality workmanship is a profitable and socially
- responsible business plan.
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Examples
- For example, Bechtel Construction has utilized project labor agreements
- on over 100 large construction jobs nationwide in the last twenty-five
- years, 85 percent of which have been in the private sector. Toyota has
- built every one of its North American manufacturing facilities under a
- Project Labor Agreement, and report that their per foot construction
- costs are one-third less than those of the competitors who eschew the
- use of Project Labor Agreements.
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