Dear Mayor Barberio and Town Council members,
Since I have not had a response from any of your offices to my recent email on the subject of PLA’s for Parsippany, and the next Town Council meeting is scheduled for October 4, which is the holiday of Yom Kippur and the holiest day of the year for people of my faith, and I therefore cannot be in attendance at Town Hall to speak directly to you, I feel compelled to again amplify my thoughts on this issue. more publicly.
Since you all took office I have been very supportive of your community activities. I think you have begun to recast your images and accessibility (as well as that of the local Republican Party) in a great way and I applaud you all for that. However, this new action of making taxpayer funded projects only open to union shops in Parsippany is so
wrong in it’s concept that I must ask you to please reconsider this move.
Implementing a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) mandate is so clearly political and serving of the large company and Union labor interests, that it almost boggles the mind that any Republican administration would even consider such a move unless there were underlying and unexplained reasons for going in such a direction. It seems to me that such an action would surely ultimately backfire on any administration that imposed PLA’s additional costs for public projects on it’s taxpayer/voter citizenry (via higher Union wages while negating smaller local businesses from being able to participate in local projects).
I’ve looked into information on PLA’s and it clearly shows that each taxpayer project increases costs by 30-40% to come to completion. In order for Unions to get their higher wages, they must first restrict competition of bidding through eliminating non-Unionized shops. I have read denials of these facts but in the end, that is how it works and often local smaller contractors who might have earned important business and do good
work, and paid a fair wage, are eliminated from the process. This sends more money out of the community instead of helping local business to keep money in the community by paying local workers.
PLA’s WILL benefit Union leadership and perhaps even some Union members, and I recognize that Unions command large blocks of voters. However, I strongly believe that Union support is nothing compared to the silent majority; among the voters of Parsippany. Please do not underestimate the intelligence and commitment of your citizens to recognize issues that do direct and personal damage to themselves and their families (in increased costs for projects and increased tax levies).
I urge you to rethink this PLA effort. It will do nothing but damage you, your administration, your party and the Township of Parsippany, if you carry out this mandate.
As 52 year resident who loves Parsippany, I am offering to each of you the most sincere and heartfelt advice/request. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS! The cost to all involved will be massive. You have all earned a great deal of personal affection and loyalty from your citizenry. I believe it would be a great miscalculation to throw this into doubt.
Respectfully submitted,
Hank Heller
Parsippany, NJ 07054
