Politics & Government

LTE: PLA Would Exclude Too Many Contractors

A Tea Party activist from Sterling weighs in on rail.

[Editor’s note: This letter came in response to .]

The real victims of a project labor agreement (PLA) are the building tradesmen, not the contractor. When it comes to the workers, the writer has it right about the 97 percent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey in 2011 only 2.6 percent of construction industry employees in Virginia were union. That's really a bit low. On a five-year moving average it is 3.0 percent.

It is my experience that it is the larger construction companies that are unionized. On that basis it is probably more than 99 percent of contractors who would be excluded.

I, by the way, live in Sugarland Run in Sterling, Loudoun County, Virginia and I'm a Tea Party activist.

Keep the faith.

David Denholm


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