The Alaska Contractor: Fall 2006

The Politics of Construction continued
Project labor agreements could lock
Alaskans out of gasline jobs
For 30 years oil revenues have enriched the lives of all
Alaskans. Today we are closer than ever to a new era of
fi nancial stability by commercializing our vast reserves of
natural gas.
Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration negotiated a contract
with the three Prudhoe Bay leaseholders to build a pipeline
along the Alaska Highway delivering the gas to the Midwest
where there’s enough demand to make the pipeline profi table
under several gas price scenarios.
Since Gov. Murkowski lost the primary election it is unclear
if the gasline project will be left to the next governor. I personally
believe there is plenty of time for the Legislature and the
administration to complete a gasline contract. (As I write this,
the Murkowski administration and producers are working on
changes to the contract and will determine if a third special session
will take place.)
Election year politics made the gasline contract a political
piñata. The Alaska Gasline Port Authority and several political
candidates took cheap shots at the contract and everyone who
BY SEN. JOHN COWDERY
disagreed with them. I want to clear up some of the misinformation
that’s out there so if another administration restarts the
negotiations we can all have a better understanding of the issue.
A recent opinion column by gubernatorial candidate Tony
Knowles in the Anchorage Daily News called for a project labor
agreement with construction unions to be part of the contract.
This is the same candidate who was governor for eight years
and couldn’t even get the producers to sit down at the bargaining
table to talk about a gas pipeline.
Knowles claims a project labor agreement puts Alaskans at
the front of the line for pipeline construction jobs. That statement
just fl oors me. Project labor agreements can actually lock
thousands of Alaskans out of pipeline construction jobs.
First, let me say that I used to be a union member myself. I
held a union card with the Carpenters Local 1281 and Operating
Engineers Local 302.
The Alaska Department of Labor says our state has about
20,000 construction workers. Only 6,000 of them are unionized.
A project labor agreement means only unionized
construction workers get pipeline construction
jobs. There simply aren’t enough of
them to build the pipeline and other projects
around the state at the same time.
A project labor agreement will lockout
thousands of rural residents from pipeline jobs
because virtually none of them are unionized.
The gas pipeline is the golden opportunity for
villagers to provide for their families and we
need to make sure they get that opportunity.
So who will get those remaining construction
jobs? Not Alaskans. Thousands of union
members from the Lower-48 will be brought
up to work on the pipeline while their paychecks
go back to Oklahoma and Texas.
The unions like to point to their state funded
vocational and union training programs. I
have always supported these programs as a
legislator and will continue to do so because
they create good paying jobs for young people
that choose not to pursue a college degree.
What the unions neglect to point out is
that these programs only graduate a handful
of students each year. In 2004 only 31 students
completed training to become truck drivers.
The welding programs trained 34 students
that same year. Anyone can see there simply
aren’t enough graduates to fi ll the thousands
of jobs a gasline project will create.
20 The Alaska CONTRACTOR Fall 2006