In their rush to malign Project Labor Agreements, anti-worker groups such as the Associated Builders and Contractors have time and time again repeated one study concerning school construction costs that was conducted by the widely discredited Beacon Hill Institute.
It is the only study that has ever purported to show that PLAs actually increase costs on public construction.
Experts at Michigan State University, the College of Wooster, and the University of Tennessee have now debunked their claims, showing that the Beacon Hill study’s claim that Community Workforce Agreements raise construction costs by 14-17 percent are effectively bogus because the study was based on overly simplistic models. According to these researchers, when a proper, more complex, model is used, those cost increases suddenly dissipate.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE ARTICLE: “PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS’ EFFECT ON SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION COSTS IN MASSACHUSETTS”