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Massachusetts Labor Op-Ed

Why is Healey making the Sagamore Bridge construction more expensive?

Project labor agreements limit who can do the work, adding unnecessary costs.

Why is Healey making the Sagamore Bridge construction more expensive?
Published in The Boston Globe.

In The Boston Globe, Executive Director Paul Diego Craney and Visiting Fellow Paul Bachman write that the Healey administration’s decision to require a project labor agreement for the Sagamore Bridge replacement will make the already-costly project even more expensive.

With the project already expected to cost more than $1.6 billion, Fiscal Alliance Foundation research estimates that the PLA requirement could add approximately $293 million to the cost by limiting competition among qualified contractors.

The column draws on the Foundation’s study of project labor agreement mandates, which found an average 16.2 percent cost premium across the summarized studies and a $3.695 billion PLA premium across MassDOT and MBTA projects over the $6 million threshold.

Read the op-ed at The Boston Globe →

Read our research on Project Labor Agreements.

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