One of the most important insights of public choice theory is that democracy often works for the benefit of special-interest groups, since they have the money and know-how to manipulate government for their benefit. The costs are diffused and obscured as much as possible to minimize opposition.
In this American Institute for Economic Research article, economics professor Gary Galles looks carefully at a California ballot proposition that would require “project labor agreements” in school construction projects in the state.
Prop 2 is promoted to the public as an efficient way of ensuring that schools are kept in tip-top shape. (Never mind that the students learn very little while in them.) What has been carefully hidden by the backers is the fact that Prop 2 contains language that pretty much requires school construction to be done by union construction firms, shutting out nonunion companies that are almost always less costly.
Galles writes, “That surprise, not mentioned at all in the Official Voter Information Guide, is that every specific project with a Project Labor Agreement will be given preference over one without a PLA. And PLAs not only routinely discriminate against the vast majority of Californians, studies have found they inflated the costs of school construction projects by 15 percent or more, and sometimes far more, and resulted in fewer total projects. When voters hear about the burdens of projects subject to PLAs, they become far less likely to vote for initiatives imposing them. The hiding is deliberate.”
PLA requirements don’t improve quality or safety; they merely ensure that more taxpayer dollars will be needed. The unions then return the favor to their political allies in the Democratic Party with abundant campaign support.
The Democrats always chatter about how they’re so intent on helping minority businesses succeed, but PLA requirements work the opposite way, as Galles observes: “Black, minority and women’s groups in construction oppose PLAs since the vast majority of them are nonunion. Requiring journeymen and journeyman pay for most tasks, reducing helper jobs, likewise crowds out minority workers, who are, on average, [still] acquiring skills. The National Black Chamber of Commerce has called PLAs ‘a license to discriminate against black workers.’”
Let us hope that Californians vote down Prop 2. But in the long run, the solution is to get government out of the business of education entirely.