November 24, 2015

Wharf project shows off unique labor agreement

SILVERDALE — U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez toured Naval Base Kitsap’s nearly completed second explosives handling wharf and plans to tout it as a model for other military projects.

The $331 million wharf, where missiles are loaded onto Trident submarines, is under budget and on schedule to be finished in January.

It is being built using a Project Labor Agreement — a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement negotiated between a project’s owner and a labor organization that sets basic terms and work conditions. PLAs typically require that employees be referred through union halls, that nonunion workers pay union dues while on the project and that the contractor follow union rules on pensions, work conditions and resolving disputes.

After touring the project Monday, Perez and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, talked with a dozen union leaders at the Plumbers and Pipefitters union hall about how the agreement has worked.

Besides keeping the project on time and under budget, the PLA was credited with employing local people, boosting the middle class through apprenticeships, and helping women, minorities and veterans get good jobs.

The Navy agreed to employ workers form Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council and Northwest Regional Council of the National Construction Alliance. Most come from Western Washington.

Lee Newgert, executive secretary of the Washington Building and Trade Council, said the agreement was a lifesaver during the recession.

“We live in this beautiful place and want to be able to stay here and work, and the program has been very successful (at allowing that),” he said.

Apprentices comprise 14.5 percent of the workforce and will probably reach the federal goal of 15 percent.

“That translates into local success stories,” said Lee Whetham, executive secretary of Olympic Peninsula Building and Construction Trades Council, which covers Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson and Clallam counties.

The project also is exceeding federal goals for minority and female workers, he said.

Some groups don’t like PLAs, claiming they can lead to increased costs because nonunion contractors have to pay into union benefit plans and obey union work rules, so they bid higher.

Jimmy Haun, political director of the Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters, agreed that’s a valid argument, but that 40 union workers can do the work of 60 nonunion ones.

“They’re looking at cost. They’re not looking at production at all,” he said.

Though President Barack Obama issued an executive order in 2009 to promote the use of PLAs on federal projects, the wharf is the only one. Political headwinds have thwarted them, said Perez, who has about 13 months left in office. He said the case must be made on dollars and cents.

“I have 427 days to go to figure out how do we create the foundation so this is not a rare exception,” he said. “We need to tell the story of this lesson conspicuously. It’s really proving to be a great model for how to spend tax dollars efficiently, build the middle class and enhance our national security.”

Perez asked the union leaders to send their insights about the project to him. He and Kilmer agreed to put together a workshop with federal agencies.