Healey Housing Office Memo: 'The more bids, or more competition, for a project, the less expensive it would be'

A Healey Administration analysis of restricted competition on public construction concludes what we've been saying for decades: with more bidders you get a better price. That's why the project labor agreement and apprentice mandate legislation should not pass, but probably will because cost is no object despite beleaguered taxpayers and the unfairness to construction workers whose only sin is to not join organized labor.

The Globe reported:

"[T]he administration’s housing office wrote in a memo reviewed by the Globe that the (apprentice program) requirement could dramatically slow the pace of rehabilitation work.

“’We are concerned that this amendment means that there will be a standstill in our planned construction work due to the elimination of 93 percent of our contractor pool,’ the memo said. ‘Even if this provision encourages more firms to create or join apprenticeship programs, it will take years to fill this gap in available contractors.’

“Eliminating the majority of the state’s contractor pool, the housing office wrote, could escalate construction costs for projects. In a sample of capital projects that were put out to bid between September 2023 and May 2024, the housing office found that projects that only received one bid were 73 percent more expensive, on average, than what the state had budgeted.

“As a general rule, the housing office found, the more bids, or more competition, for a project, the less expensive it would be.”

Exactly.

Time and again, MCA has shown how fair and open competition among qualified bidders - union and merit shop - results in the best value for the taxpayers. 

Both the PLA and the apprentice program mandate (which will violate federal law) are reckless and ill-considered. They are ploys to restrict competition and create a monopoly for organized labor. They amount to systemic discrimination against merit shops, which include most minority- and women-owned firms. Their employees will be harmed by their own government because they choose not to join organized labor, which represents a small fraction of the construction workforce in this state.