Matt Bucher is the vice president of the Milford School District Board of Education and the legislative chair of the Delaware School Boards Association. He has worked in the state’s commercial/institutional construction industry for 26 years
Senate Bill 272, which has passed the state Senate and moves into the House of Representatives this week, is not a pro-worker measure. It is not a pro-economy measure. And it is not a pro-Delaware taxpayer measure. SB 272 would do real harm to Delaware’s construction industry, its employees, schools and the taxpayers who fund public projects.
SB 272 would require major state-funded school construction projects to operate under project labor agreements with the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council, with only limited exceptions. That is not a minor procurement change. It is a sweeping, intrusive government mandate that would force a single labor model — one which the vast, vast majority of Delaware tradespeople and small businesses have rejected — onto a diverse industry that is doing just fine without this latest legislative interference.
It punishes the industry Delaware actually has. The problem is straightforward: Nearly 90% of Delaware’s construction workforce, along with the small- and midsize businesses that perform most of the state’s work, operates in the merit shop, free-market system. SB 272 does not simply set rules for union contractors. It imposes a union-centered model on a local industry that is already functioning well and delivering results.
That is bad for workers and bad for fairness.
Delaware construction employees are already building public projects successfully under the system we have now — and they are earning top-dollar prevailing-wage rates while doing so. They should be judged on skill, safety, performance and cost, not on whether they fit one politically preferred labor arrangement. A truly fair bidding system welcomes all qualified Delaware contractors and craftspeople. SB 272 does the opposite.
It “solves” a problem that does not exist. Supporters suggest that this mandate is needed to ensure better training or better performance. But where is the evidence? There is none.
Delaware’s public record already shows that major state-funded projects, including school construction projects worth well over $100 million, are regularly completed on time, under budget and under close engineering and architectural oversight. Delaware’s craftspeople have earned more trust than this bill gives them.
In other words, this legislation is not responding to failure. It is looking for a reason to exist.
When an industry is performing successfully and satisfactorily for the taxpayers of Delaware, the General Assembly should not feel compelled to bedevil and harass it with one more costly mandate.
It could sideline Delaware workers in favor of out-of-state labor. There is another hard truth the sponsors of SB 272 ignore: In several specialty trades, Delaware simply does not have enough in-state union labor to meet demand. In some cases, union contractors would have to rely on out-of-state labor halls, including Philadelphia, to staff Delaware jobs.
Anyone who knows this industry understands what that means. When larger projects in the Philadelphia region need workers, Delaware risks getting whoever is left over. That is not a strategy for strengthening Delaware’s workforce. It is a strategy for sidelining it.
The better question is this: Who should build Delaware’s public projects — Delaware tradespeople/taxpayers/stakeholders or out-of-state labor pools? For anyone who believes Delaware public dollars should support Delaware workers first, the answer is obvious.
It will hammer small and emerging Delaware businesses, who will be particularly disadvantaged by this government interference. That is especially true for minority-owned and women-owned businesses, which often recruit from communities of color and do not have the staff or administrative budget to absorb new compliance costs.
An emerging business’s most effective competitive weapon is the ability to compete on price and administrative nimbleness. The introduction of third-party intermediaries and adversarial labor complications into daily operations is onerous for any firm, large or small. But it does not take much imagination to see who may benefit from this bill: large out-of-state firms with large legal and compliance teams, firms that have heretofore left this sector of Delaware construction to the locals.
The bitter irony is that a bill sold as helping Delaware workers may end up helping outside companies elbow Delaware firms aside.
It will drive up costs for schools and taxpayers. SB 272 is bad for the Delaware taxpayer because it discourages competition. Delaware should want the largest possible pool of qualified bidders on public projects. Competition is what helps keep prices down and standards high. When the government narrows the field by legislative fiat before bids are even submitted, taxpayers lose.
And the people most likely to feel the pain are those who are served by the local school districts.
As so often happens, local school districts are being tasked with absorbing the damage from legislative experimentation. Delaware’s budget is already under serious strain; the budget gap in the coming fiscal year was largely closed on the backs of local public schools. Roughly $200 million in deferred maintenance and needed new school construction — due to overcrowding — has once again been pushed down the road, even as districts are told to cut spending and do more with less. The best place to start would be to cut legislative and executive mandates that have no proven record of improving student outcomes. Instead, this bill adds yet another burden.
If anyone wants to know why Delaware’s per capita education costs are so high, they need look no further than measures like SB 272: fewer projects for more money.
SB 272 would reduce competition, drive costs skyward, burden our local small- and medium-size Delaware job creators and limit flexibility for Delaware jobholders. Delaware must reject this bill and preserve free, open and competitive public bidding.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
