America's most notorious union-only project labor agreement (PLA), Boston's "Big Dig," will come to completion with the end of 2007. What a bittersweet day for citizens of Boston. The Associated Press puts it this way:

"Don't expect any champagne toasts."

As also noted by the AP, the Big Dig's history was "littered with wrong turns" such as a major tunnel leak in 2004, as well as the tragic death of a motorist in 2006.

Financially, the Big Dig sapped taxpayers for $14.8 billion, over five and a half times the original cost estimate of $2.6 billion.

This train wreck of a public construction project should serve as "exhibit A" of the gluttonous waste inherent in PLAs. Such projects are also a "lose-lose" for employees that wish to remain nonunion because they are blackballed from working, as well as for the taxpayers forced to foot the bill.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today reports:

Accusing trade unions of standing in the way of minority hiring objectives, City Council yesterday declared the $700 million Convention Center expansion open to nonunion contractors and workers - an unprecedented gesture in a city dominated by organized labor.

Union officials commonly shut out minority and nonunion contractors from such projects through so-called "project labor agreements." These cynical pacts require all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project.

For more information on the harmful effects of PLAs, see this study from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.