Nearly a year before opening bids on several planned prison sites, Pennsylvania’s Department of General Services (DGS) signed a letter of commitment with the Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC) which required DGS to award the bid to a member of the council, that is, a union contractor.

James Creedon

The letter states in the first paragraph, “DGS will retain the Keystone Research Center to conduct the necessary studies and investigations required for the development of a Project Labor Stabilization Agreement (PLSA) for each project meeting this criteria. IF such studies justify a PLSA, DGS will negotiate and enter into a PLSA with the regional  building trades council affiliated with the Building Trades in each region of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where the project will be constructed” (emphasis added).

The  DGS letter is dated April of 2008 and bears the signatures of James Creedon, Secretary of the DGS and Frank Sirianni, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents construction unions across Pennsylvania. According to their website the BCTC “provides essential coordination and support to the work of its affiliated national and international unions in order that, through inter-trade solidarity, organized construction workers achieve a powerful voice in government, in bargaining, and in their communities.”

Frank Sirianni also sits on the board of the Keystone Research Center (KRC), the organization which produced a report in 2009 recommending the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) for the construction of the prisons, specifically in Benner Township. Their report came after a study conducted by Kevin Moore for the same township. Mr. Moore’s report states “in this Region, at this time, there does not appear to be any data that would support the necessity for the PLA. The Regional construction market is incredibly slow, resulting in an overabundance of skilled labor throughout the Region, the Commonwealth and beyond. There is no competitor for DGS for skilled labor now, or on the 24-29 month horizon…under the present circumstances and wholly limited to the facts presented, a PLA is not necessary for DGS to complete this project as planned.” (Moore Report)

The Keystone Research Center’s report summarizes the history of PLAs in Pennsylvania and analyzes the union makeup in Pennsylvania. It also cites the possibility of employing more African-Americans as a reason to use PLAs but does not specifically analyze  Brenner Township or address competition. Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the KRC, said in a previous interview his organization did not complete a study for DGS.The existence of this report seems to contradict that. But Mr. Herzenberg said, once again, “What I said yesterday was accurate. We weren’t contracted by DGS; we were contracted by, like, a construction management firm. The fact that the feasibility was done may well have been at the request of DGS.” (KRC Report)

So before bidding even began on the prison sites, DGS had already committed to use a union-affiliated contractor through a PLA. Under the PLA, if an open-shop contractor won the bid, the company would be required to either hire workers from a union-hall or to force its regular employees to pay union dues, let the union represent them, and pay in to the union pension system without the hope of receiving funds from it later. Given Pennsylvania’s construction industry is 80 percent open-shop and only 20 percent unionized, the pre-arranged PLA blocked out 80 percent of the industry.

“Our big point of contention is this is taxpayer money,” said Jack Zimmer, president of ABC Keystone, an open-shop construction company involved in a lawsuit contesting the PLA on the project along with more than a dozen other petitioners. “We have seen this under Republican leadership, but our arguments remain the same that it’s not fair to taxpayers and it’s not fair to the construction workers who [aren’t] union members. Everyone should have the same opportunity to work on these jobs without having to pay union wages, and have to pay into the union pension that they’ll never see.”

The theoretical defense for a PLA is it ensures for uninterrupted work and controls cost, but Mr. Zimmer said that was a smoke-screen. “There’s no reason to have them. The lion’s share of all construction that is procured in the United States is done without a project labor agreement. Some of the largest and most complicated projects in the world are done without the PLA. The private sector doesn’t’ require a plan to ensure the workers are taken care of and the job is performed to the owners’ satisfaction.”

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Darwyyn Deyo can be contacted by email at darwyyn@paindependent.com