As Gregory A. Mancini sees it, there’s a very good reason for BuildRI’s new name: The contractors and the union workers they employ, he says, are literally building Rhode Island.
They built Amgen’s new $500-million facility in West Greenwich, remodeled Bank of America’s new East Providence call center, and are building Brown University’s $70-million Life Sciences building and GTECH’s new $80-million world headquarters.
So far this year, BuildRI has signed four project labor agreements and received commitments for four more, Mancini says, plus it’s negotiating deals on another four projects.
“If you look around Rhode Island and you look at the marquee projects, they’re built all-union, and it looks like the new skyline of Providence is also going to be built all-union,” Mancini said in an interview. “So in a sense, union contractors really are building Rhode Island.”
BuildRI, known until recently as the 21st Century Labor Management Partnership, continues to snatch up major projects in Rhode Island – and to secure some of the best commercial jobs available for contractors who use union labor.
It’s a feat that defies national trends and frustrates the Rhode Island chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents about 115 “open-shop” commercial contractors, mostly small and mid-sized companies, which lose out with each project labor agreement that is signed.
“There’s a lot of smaller firms that are competitive, price-wise, that could be working on these projects but are excluded,” said Harvey Simms, president of ABC-Rhode Island.
“Regardless of what labor says,” Simms added, “they don’t have the work force, so they import people from out of state to work on these projects.” As a result, he argued, not only good companies lose out, but good workers as well.
And because minority and woman-owned businesses tend to be smaller, added former ABC president Robert Boisselle, making big jobs all-union also “discriminates” against them. “It’s not so much the general contractor that gets hurt; it’s subcontractors,” he said.
Not true, countered Mancini.
The nearly 600 contractors who’ve signed on to BuildRI include not only major companies, he said, but also about half the minority-owned firms. As for the work force as a whole, he said the unions involved in BuildRI have about 10,000 members – most, though not all, in Rhode Island. As of October, state labor statistics show, a total of 21,600 Rhode Islanders worked in construction, including both commercial and residential (typically non-union) jobs.
The unions also continue to develop the next generation of construction workers, Mancini added, by spending “millions” on apprenticeship and training programs. Yes, there are non-union training programs as well, he said, but they’re much smaller. And as Rhode Island’s construction market continues to grow, he said, that will provide a competitive advantage.
“I think we have a lot of momentum,” he said. “I think the construction market is very active, and there are a lot of projects out there, and … I think a lot of contractors are going to ask, ‘Where am I going to get skilled, qualified labor?’ Our unions recruit kids and train them, and they make an investment in this whole process. I think contractors see the value of that.”
“It’s going to be a very fertile market,” Mancini added.
But will it pay for the clients?
ABC argues that all-union jobs are more expensive and subject to needless delays due to union rules about shift lengths and job assignments and other such things. The only reason clients keep signing PLAs, Boisselle argued, is because unions engage in “extortion”: Sign a PLA, they say, and “we won’t cause any problems, we won’t break any windows, we won’t slash any tires, we won’t have any pickets in front of your site. …” In reality, however, PLAs don’t even guarantee protection from labor unrest, Boisselle said.
“The things aren’t worth the paper they’re written on,” he said.
Mancini dismisses those claims as nonsense, and points to the various successful projects that have included all-union deals as proof that, in fact, PLAs are useful and cost-effective.
Still, BuildRI’s record so far is by no means a guarantee that the next big job will be union, Mancini acknowledged. “At the end of the day, each job we secure is going to be on the merits of that project,” he said.
