“Political influence, not professional performance, is the prime criterion in doing business with the state”: The Ward Commission Report, Dec. 1981
The economic development and clean energy bills contain language that will lock-out merit shop construction companies and their employees in order to create a monopoly for organized labor. Rather than creating new opportunities, this legislation creates new hurdles for qualified bidders, especially most minority- and women-owned construction firms, most of which are non-union shops.
“The House and the Senate today signaled that political influence, not professional performance, should be the prime criterion for working on public construction. Unless the odious language is vetoed by Governor Healey, the Commonwealth is erecting systemic barriers that deny opportunity to all for the sole benefit of the politically wired,” said Jason Kauppi, president of the Merit Construction Alliance of Massachusetts, a trade association of merit shop contractors advocating for fair and open competition.
Both pieces of legislation deny the majority of the state’s construction workforce the
opportunity to bid and work on projects simply because they choose to not join organized labor. It has given the green light to locking out the 82 percent of the state’s construction workforce that chooses not to join a union.
Ironically, the economic development bill creates a pilot program to help small construction companies afford surety bonds on public projects, but also creates a system whereby they can be denied the opportunity to bid and work because they choose to not sign with unions.
With this bill, the Legislature undermines the state’s public bidding statutes and sets us on a path to repeat a history of corruption in public construction. As historic Ward Commission found, “Political influence, not professional performance, is the prime criterion in doing business with the state.”