Santa Barbara City Council is moving forward with their Project Labor Agreements (PLA), which essentially shut out private-sector, non-labor contractors from bidding on any municipal projects, over a certain amount of money, and actually obtaining the bid without committing to hiring labor union workers.
Carefully keep in mind that all municipal projects are paid for with taxpayer dollars. Our neighbors in south San Luis Obispo County are already experiencing the “squeeze” of the unions under their PLA. PLAs increase all costs of a project, as all workers and executives have to be paid union wages, not lower costs related to private-sector competitive bidding processes.
Santa Barbara County supervisors will be talking about PLAs shortly if Gregg Hart has anything to say about it.
