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Council hears options for project labor and community workforce agreements to boost local hiring and compliance
Summary
At a council work session, an outside consultant outlined how project labor agreements (PLAs) and community workforce agreements (CWAs) work, the limits and potential benefits for Lynnwood projects, and the likely administrative costs and compliance needs.
City Council received a briefing April 7 on project labor agreements and community workforce agreements as tools the city could use to encourage higher wages, local hiring and stronger compliance on public construction projects.
The consultant Daniel Viao of Intelligent Partnerships told council members that PLAs and CWAs are legal, pre-hire agreements intended to guarantee wage, apprenticeship and hiring commitments from contractors before work begins. "These are administrative reporting processes, not construction deliverables," Viao said, adding that the agreements typically do not force contractors to unionize and should not automatically raise construction costs. "Our typical experience has been that they average about 1% of your construction costs to administer these programs," he told council.
Why it matters: Council member David Hurst, who requested the discussion, framed PLAs/CWAs as a tool to bring higher-wage…
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