From The Watertown Daily Times OGDENSBURG — A spokesperson for the state chapter of a national construction association representing non-union companies and their workers says the organization’s board of directors will decide whether to mount a legal challenge in state Supreme Court over the City Council’s recent decision to adopt a Project Labor Agreement [...]
The Chapter provides a recap of the budget passed for the new fiscal year.
The reports are clear. The use of prevailing wage on projects does not improve the quality of the project nor does it make them safer. Instead, it means projects will cost 15-30% more and any financial support will need to be increased to make those projects feasible. We shouldn’t be making New York more expensive.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 25, 2019 Contact: Amanda Bertram (518) 469-1507 At a recent press event, Assemblyman Harry Bronson (D-Rochester) referred to questions about how the State's Department of Labor calculates prevailing wage a "deflection" to his efforts to expand the definition of public work to include private development projects. In response Brian Sampson, [...]
For years, the city of Ogdensburg has struggled to gather funding for improvements to the wastewater treatment plant. Now, with the final financing pieces falling into place, the spendthrift City Council has voted to irresponsibly waste tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to conduct a study to consider using a Project Labor Agreement: a discriminatory, pre-hire agreement with labor organizations requiring that the workforce comes from the local union hiring hall.
The critical project for renovations and additions to the Green Street firehouse will provide hundreds of construction jobs to the region. That’s the good news. The bad news? The Mount Kisco Village Board is making this taxpayer-funded project significantly more expensive by mandating a Project Labor Agreement (PLA).
Brian Sampson, president of the Empire State Chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, which works on behalf of over 400 construction and contracting firms throughout New York State, said he’s actually a bird fan. It’s just that saving them from deadly building crashes with a new law is “unnecessary” and “pretty far down the list” compared to other big cost-drivers affecting construction such as the dusty scaffolding laws, the calculation of prevailing wages, and even recreational marijuana legalization that has been floated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a possible law that he said could endanger pot-free hardhats working alongside legal users.
When it comes to construction, New York City is no longer just a union town.
Construction contractors in New York continue to struggle to do business, according to 2018 state rankings released by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). “Building America: The Merit Shop Scorecard” reviews and ranks state-specific information significant to the success of the commercial and industrial construction industry.
A spokeswoman for the Empire State Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, along with two north country private contractors, have informed elected officials in Ogdensburg that they do not support using a Project Labor Agreement as part of the municipality’s $35 million wastewater treatment plant project.
