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OTTAWA – Think-tank Cardus is urging the Ontario government to be aware of the “serious downsides” of project labour agreements (PLAs) in construction procurements.

“PLAs can introduce tendering practices that restrict labour on major infrastructure projects to workers who are affiliated with one labour union or a set of labour unions, excluding construction workers who wish to affiliate with other unions or not to affiliate at all,” according to , a research brief by Renze Nauta, work and economics program director at Cardus.

The brief sites the Institute for ��������ion Employment Research, which found 96 per cent of the Ontario PLAs it examined had some form of mandatory membership of workers in specific unions.

Previous studies have shown restricting competition for construction procurement can increase project costs by 14 to 21 per cent, Cardus asserts.

“All Ontario workers and contractors should be able to work on and bid on Ontario- and nation-building projects, but restrictive PLAs discriminate against those who want to be members of unions a PLA excludes or don’t want to be unionized at all,” says Nauta in a statement. “To make matters worse, restrictive PLAs also cause construction costs to increase by limiting competition for construction contracts.”

While current Ontario PLAs are almost exclusively in the private sector, the Ottawa Hospital’s apparently use of a “competition-limiting PLA suggests public-sector use of these agreements could grow in the future,” the release notes.

Nauta warns public-sector PLAs could undo the progress Ontario has made in ensuring fair, open and competitive construction procurement at the municipal level.

“Ontario’s government needs to make sure it does not allow PLAs to become a backdoor way of reversing its progress in eliminating anti-competitive construction procurement practices,” he says.

The research brief is available .