Local Hiring Promotes good, family-wage jobs for our communities
Local hiring is an important goal for the Baltimore-D.C.Metro Building Trades Council. It is a top priority of our council, underscoring our commitment to standing up for good jobs and strong local communities.
Local hiring is of particular significance on local public works projects. It helps ensure that local residents have ample opportunities to construct important and necessary facilities in their own communities.
Local hiring helps ensure that local residents have ample opportunities to construct important and necessary facilities in their own communities.
PLAs Help Support Local Hiring
Our primary mode of achieving local hiring is through project labor agreements (PLAs). These agreements offer viable and attainable community benefits agreements that often include local hiring provisions to target residents of the jurisdiction where the work is being completed.
Important examples of the impact of local hiring include the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C.and the Frederick Douglass Tunnel in Baltimore. Each of these projects features local hiring provisions that ensure important infrastructure work in these regions is done by people who live in that region. Local residents who work on these construction projects also benefit from the public good these projects provide.
Because our PLAs incorporate local hiring provisions, we are also proud to support good paying union jobs throughout the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas. Union workers are typically paid more than non-union workers when controlling for education, industry and other factors, demonstrating the impact union wages make in supporting and growing the middle class.
PLAs also help to ensure that Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE) and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise(DBE) goals are met, while training and employing workers from the communities that the public works projects will serve.
As cities, counties, and states consider future public work projects, it is imperative these projects be done under PLAs, which ensure that large public investments also benefit local residents and continue to grow the middle class in communities across the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.