Sound Transit-Union Deal Would Hurt Workers, Public

RECENT reports in The Seattle Times tell of rising costs for construction of the light-rail system between Sea-Tac and the University District. Indications are the price tag, originally seen as $1.8 billion, may have already gone up by $200 million or more.

At the same time, the construction industry locally and nationally is experiencing a shortage of workers. All avenues that train and qualify men and women for construction work to fill the gap must be supported.

Given these circumstances, why would Sound Transit, the agency charged with building the light-rail system, even consider a special pact with labor-union leaders that is certain to raise costs further and to exclude thousands of qualified Washington construction workers - men, women and the diversity of the community - from the job?

Yet, that's what the Sound Transit Board of Directors is on the verge of doing this month - deciding on a deal, called a government-mandated project labor agreement (GMPLA), with labor leaders. But our officials haven't asked enough questions. Taxpayers and the press should be asking them why.

In a GMPLA, a government agency as owner and initiator of a public-works project disregards the time-proven method of contractor selection known as the open competitive bidding process. The agency decides a project will be constructed according to a special agreement negotiated by the agency directly with building-trades labor leaders - without involvement of the bidding or performing contractors.

Terms and conditions of a GMPLA will apply to all work on a project; require recognition of unions as exclusive bargaining representatives for workers, including non-union workers; supersede all other collective-bargaining agreements; require hiring through union hiring halls; require chosen bidders to become signatory; establish work rules, hours and other conditions; and set wages and benefits - including payment to union trust funds. All of this is in return for a promise the unions won't strike - a promise they can't deliver on!

The experience with GMPLA projects around the United States shows high cost. For example, an analysis of bids for the Roswell Park Cancer Institute constructed for the New York State Dormitory Authority shows taxpayers could have saved $39.1 million over the five-year, $170 million project if it had been competitively bid by both union and open-shop contractors. Thus construction costs were raised 26 percent.

Applied to the original Sound Transit light-rail estimate of $1.8 billion, a 26 percent cost increase amounts to nearly $500 million.

There is absolutely no evidence or documentation that GMPLAs are cost-effective or beneficial to taxpayers, and strikes do occur.

The carpenters union last month struck the San Francisco Airport job, a GMPLA project with a no-strike clause, over wages.

Projects built under GMPLAs are extra costly to the public agency and the taxpayer for three overall reasons:

-- First, because of the exclusionary contract, bidding is narrowed because fewer nonunion or open-shop contractors want to get involved. With less competition, costs go up. Contractors who do submit bids will include factors to try to cover unknown or extra costs.

-- Second, costs rise because any open-shop contractor that agrees to work under a GMPLA (very few will) pays double fringe benefits. The contractor pays to employees what they normally get in fringe benefits.

In addition, the agreement requires contractors to pay union benefits in the same amount into union trust funds. Once the project is complete and the agreement has expired, the nonunion worker loses those union-held funds, and the union has a windfall.

-- Third, costs rise because of the work rules required in the GMPLA. Work rules limit how work gets done among the various trade workers, involving "jurisdictional barriers." For example, carpenters build forms, laborers pour concrete, cement finishers smooth the top and no one is allowed to do another's job. Dead time occurs between the activities.

This contrasts with how open-shop crews typically operate - workers share work across activities as needed with less dead time. Work gets done faster, thus less expensively, over the span of the project.

GMPLAs are exclusionary, and that's where the labor shortage becomes a major factor. Few open-shop contractors - big or small, and which include most women- and minority-owned firms - will bid. This is a huge, unwise and unfair exclusion of labor pool and talent, since about 75 percent of Washington's construction workers are open-shop.

Why should they be excluded? The region needs all the qualified workers it can get. The U.S. Department of Labor projects nearly 30 percent of the 4 million construction craft workers needed in 2005 will need to be recruited and trained.

Sound Transit ought to know the unions do not have a lock on training and quality of construction workers. The thousands of nonunion construction workers - the 75 percent - come from somewhere.

Excellent programs in apprenticeship and craft training in seven trades are offered by the Construction Industry Training Council. CITC is a nonprofit, licensed, accredited vocational school for the construction industry established in 1985 by a coalition of trade associations. All of CITC's programs are approved by the state or federal offices of labor.

CITC offers continuing education for existing journeymen. CITC works with trade associations to encourage new entrants into construction careers through a school-to-work pre-apprenticeship-internship program, currently at Garfield High School in Seattle.

The AGC's mission, vision and strategic plan include exercising responsible leadership in our communities. We're trying to do that, by explaining to Sound Transit and the public that a GMPLA is the wrong and very expensive way to approach construction.

Hank Stamschror is president of Associated General Contractors of Washington.