This is for a different area of the country, but it suggests another BUSH LIE.
"There are no previous published studies that analyze the relationship between state prevailing wage laws
and public school construction costs. Steven Allen’s study of union and nonunion contractors in the early
1970s found that while union workers were 20% to 50% more productive than nonunion workers, nonunion
contractors were the low-cost contractors in public school construction. Allen’s study was limited to 57
union-built and 11 nonunion-built schools. Consequently, he had to collapse together elementary and
secondary school buildings and include various regions of the country. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
found that in the early 1970s labor costs as a percent of total costs in school construction did not vary
widely by region despite wage rate variations of 50%. The BLS attributed this to differences in regional
labor productivity and construction material costs.
Azari, Yeagle and Philips show that in the case of Utah, the repeal of the state prevailing wage law in 1981
corresponded to a rapid decline in apprenticeship training in that state, a decline that was not compensated
by any increase in job corps or community college training. Bureau of Apprenticeship Training data for the
1990s show that 85% of all apprenticeship-trained construction journeymen come out of jointly sponsored
union-management apprenticeship programs. The reasons that nonunion construction contractors are less
likely to train are associated with market failures tied to the problems of free-riding contractors waiting for
others to train and bait-and-switch contractors offering training but only providing helper experiences onthe-
job. Collectively bargained contracts calling for jointly managed apprenticeship programs provides the
policing mechanism to overcome these market failures. Thus, regulations that discourage collective
bargaining in construction also discourage formal apprenticeship training in construction. The resulting
lower productivity helps account for the fact that lower wage rates in construction do not necessarily lead to
lower construction costs.
In the case of the nine southwestern and Intermountain states selected for this cost study, Table 10 shows
the basic result. The average square foot construction costs for 116 elementary schools built in five states
with prevailing wage laws was $67 while for 59 elementary schools built in four states without prevailing
wage laws the cost was $73 per square foot. For 76 middle schools built in the states with prevailing wage
laws, the average square foot cost was $66 while in the states without prevailing wage laws the cost was $77
per square foot. For 31 high schools built in the five states with prevailing wage laws, the square foot cost was $70 while in the four states without state prevailing wage laws the cost was $81. The difference in all
of these averages was statistically significant."
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