HARRISBURG: ABC Keystone’s multi-front media campaign against one of Pennsylvania last, legal forms of job discrimination is gaining traction! If you haven’t noticed, or have been on vacation, we’ve taken our message to the streets in a major way.

Following a rowdy State Capitol press conference earlier this month, where hundreds of paid union workers shouted down State Representative John Baer, the lead sponsor of House Bill 2010 (The Endangered Jobs Protection Act), the media has been asking the right questions and paying attention.

In multiple radio and TV interviews, our side is telling ‘the rest of the story’ about the negative impact of PLA Discrimination on Pennsylvania workers. If you’re in the Capitol region you’ve no doubt heard our radio ads and watched giant “Endangered Species” billboards pop up in conspicuous places. Here’s one of the locations on installation day!

Lancaster Sunday News | Oct 11, 2009

No doubt these are difficult economic times, but not everyone is sharing in the pain. With a little less than 13 months to go before we elect a new governor, the current administration is working vigorously to find ways to reward one of its largest constituencies: organized labor.

The only problem is that it is being done at the taxpayers’ expense, and to the detriment of most state construction workers, including many right here in Central Pennsylvania. How? Well, one method is by designating public construction projects as “union-only jobs” via a prehire contractual agreement called a Project Labor Agreement, or PLA.

So what the heck is a PLA?

PLAs are a form of mandatory unionism where contracts are drafted requiring all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project. This is done by including a union collective bargaining agreement in a public construction project’s bid specifications.

But here’s the rub. Most open-shop (non-union) construction companies don’t want to bid a project where, if successful, they have to hire from union hiring halls, unionize their own employees or be liable for future pension obligations for organized labor.

And why should they! State and local governments should not be in the business of promulgating contracts that: discriminate against 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s state construction workers who choose not to be part of organized labor; add additional costs to public construction projects; are not necessary to protect workers’ wages; and create an uneven playing field.

However, that is exactly what we are doing in Pennsylvania. Here’s how.

PLAs come in many forms and are used at the discretion of state and local governments. For example, Westmoreland County recently mandated that PLAs be used for any construction project that is more than $150,000. Similarly, the Scranton School District is using PLAs for new school construction. Then you have Pottsville and its new intermodal transportation hub that broke ground last month. It too has been tagged with a PLA.

However, none of these projects can compare to what the Pennsylvania Department of General Services has decided to do for the construction of the state’s three new prisons. All of these multimillion-dollar construction projects were designated as PLA projects at some point during the bidding process.

But why is this kind of favoritism/borderline cronyism needed in the first place?

The argument goes something like this: Without PLAs, public construction projects would be underbid and badly executed, using an unskilled work force and possibly illegal aliens from out of town that are poorly paid and don’t have any benefits. Unfortunately, just the opposite is true.

By using PLAs, government-funded construction projects are frequently rewarded to out-of-town companies and workers at a much higher cost to taxpayers. For proof, look no further than the state’s Centre County prison project bid and Pottsville’s new transportation hub.

In Pottsville, the contractor who was awarded the project was from New York — so much for keeping it local. And in the case of the Centre County prison project, the PLA designation was pulled after the bids came back considerably higher than the estimated $200 million, not to mention that multiple lawsuits were filed and a significantly small percentage of the construction work force is unionized in this part of the commonwealth.

But more importantly, all of these projects are subject to Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage laws and also require verification of citizenship, with or without a PLA. So, what I am missing?

If we truly want to be accountable to our taxpayers and not discriminate, Pennsylvania needs to pass my bill, H.B. 2010, to allow open contracting that guarantees taxpayers get the best work at the best price, and ensure that no project bidder, large or small, is excluded from bidding on a government-funded construction project because of an affiliation or a lack of affiliation with a union.

To do otherwise, is nothing more than a big labor payback, payjack.

State Rep. John C. Bear, of Lititz, represents the 97th District.