Why Project Labor Agreements are Not in the Public Interest

Project Labor Agreements (PLA's) on public projects are a "heads-we-win, tails-we-breakeven" proposition for the unions. At worst, from the point of view of the unions, a PLA modifies work rules that would have been modified anyway in the course of open bidding. At best, it preserves work rules that would have been modified had the bidding process not been encumbered by a PLA. The only explanation for a PLA on a public project is the reluctance of politicians to enforce open bidding laws against the resistance of a weakening, but still powerful, union monopoly