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A commission spokeswoman said Tuesday the unions missed a Friday deadline and bid documents for the West Parish Water Treatment plant will not include what’s known as a “project labor agreement,” or PLA.
The project is needed to help the commission meet drinking water standards.
The step is a setback to the Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council . The unions said there was a delay trading paperwork over the President’s Day weekend.
Jaimye Bartak , communications manager for the commission, said terms were reached Friday with the council.
“However, the Commission did not receive agreement to sign the PLA from the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters by the deadline of 4 p.m. on Friday ,” she said in an email in response to questions from The Republican.
Based on the board’s vote last week, she said, “all union signatories were required to agree to all provisions of the PLA in order to promote labor harmony, a core purpose of a PLA.”
“Therefore, the Commission will issue a bid for the construction of the West Parish Water Treatment Plant without a PLA,” Bartak wrote.
Late Tuesday, word came from contractors that the release of bid documents outlining requirements originally set for Wednesday, Feb. 21 , have been pushed back a week to Feb. 28 , according to Jason Kauppi , president of the Merit Construction Alliance .
The Merit Construction Alliance opposed the project labor agreement.
Colton Andrews , president of the Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council , had pushed for the agreement, saying the deal was for everyone’s benefit.
The new filtration plant, planned to be built at the commission’s facilities on Granville Road in Westfield, will require 300 to 350 construction workers — equipment operators, carpenters, plumbers, pipefitters, electricians and sheet-metal workers — at its busiest phase.
Andrews said the agreement was reached Friday and he just had to follow up with paperwork Tuesday.
The delay resulted because it was hard to get signatures from members over the holiday weekend, and with some union officials traveling.
Andrews said the agreement calls for 20% of the workers hired be apprentices earning as they learn their trades.
“These do serve as huge economic drivers for the region,” Andrews said of the agreement. “It gives a lot of opportunities for a local high school kid to join a trade out of school. For us this is what starts a career and pathway to the middle class.”
At the $325 million estimated construction cost, this would have been the largest project labor agreement in the region since the $573 million in construction costs at MGM Springfield completed in 2018. A similar pact is in place for the ongoing $483 million Veterans Home in Holyoke.
The Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council lobbied for months to get a project labor agreement in place for the project and has thanked U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal , Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno , state Sen. Jacob Oliveira , D- Ludlow, and state Reps. Angelo Puppolo , D-Springfield, Brian Ashe , D-Longmeadow, Michael Finn , D-West Springfield, Aaron Saunders , D-Belchertown, and Patricia Duffy , D-Holyoke, for their support.
The agreement was controversial, drawing opposition from nonunion contractors who call it exclusionary and say it’ll drive up costs.
The Sewer and Water Commission approved the project labor agreement in concept in January.
But the deal looked to be in trouble last week because the commission needed a carve-out, the ability for minority- and women-owned contractors — union or not — to bid on contracts of up to $1 million .
The unions, acquiesced to the $1 million limit, Andrews said Tuesday. They had offered only a $500,000 exception.
He noted that the job was always going to require the prevailing wage, even without a project labor agreement. Andrews said the pact would have increased costs by a dollar or two an hour to pay for apprenticeship programs.
In return for hiring union labor, under the pact, the unions would have promised not to strike for the duration of the project. And both sides agree to hiring quotas including that 15.3% of the work force be minority, 7% women and 25% be local.
Local is defined as living in in the Water & Sewer Commission’s service territory of Springfield, West Ludlow, Longmeadow, East Longmeadow and Agawam.
Work is set to begin in July and last into 2028.
The Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council has 20 constituent unions and about 6,000 local members, Andrews said.
In 2021, the commission received a $250 million low-interest loan from the EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act Program.
Matching funds will come from the state’s competitive Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program, which provides low-interest loans for drinking water projects.
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