At Connecticut’s 2025 State of Housing Conference on Nov. 17 and 18, one panel stood out for all the wrong reasons. The session titled “Union-Built Affordable Housing” was billed as a serious discussion of how organized labor contributes to housing development. Instead, it became an exercise in denying that basic economics apply to construction costs.
The conversation quickly turned into a pitch for Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) — contracts that require nearly all workers on a public project to be hired through union halls. Panelists dismissed concerns about affordability, claiming that cost increases were “right-wing” myths. The event was less about solving Connecticut’s housing challenges and more about promoting a policy agenda detached from financial reality.
The Mandate With a Price Tag
PLAs require contractors to hire through union channels and comply with union work rules. They control staffing ratios, mandate apprenticeship pipelines, prohibit strikes and lockouts, and effectively prevent most open-shop (non-union) contractors from bidding. Supporters claim PLAs promote stability. Critics point out that they limit competition and increase costs, often significantly.
One of the panel’s most revealing moments came when Joe Toner, Executive Director of the Connecticut State Building Trades, tried to “debunk” the idea that PLAs increase project costs. He claimed that because “labor costs are only 25 percent of a project,” requiring union labor couldn’t meaningfully affect budgets.
The problem is that labor drives costs beyond just wages. Higher pay scales increase subcontractor bids, expand insurance exposure, and reduce competition which means the few remaining bidders price higher. Fewer competitors and higher wage mandates ripple through every part of a project’s budget.
What the Panel Left Out
Toner said his figures came from “studies that were done by Cornell,” but never cited any findings or offered evidence that PLAs improve affordability. Instead, he repeated talking points about non-union workers relying on “SNAP benefits, housing benefits, and Husky benefits for their family,” claiming open-shop tradespeople earn only “$20 to $25 an hour with no benefits.”
That narrative doesn’t hold up. Many non-union contractors in Connecticut offer health insurance, retirement plans, and competitive salaries that often exceed union compensation once dues are factored in. Thousands of workers choose open-shop employment precisely because it provides competitive pay without the mandatory union membership.
And the data doesn’t support the claim that PLAs reduce costs. A 2024 RAND study of PLA-mandated affordable housing projects in Los Angeles found that these agreements increased total development costs by 21 percent, more than double the original estimate. RAND concluded that the PLA effectively eliminated one out of every five housing units that could have been built without it.
Turning Talking Points Into Law
Connecticut is not just entertaining union arguments — it’s adopting them.
Hidden within the housing omnibus bill passed during last week’s special session is a new bond-funded program, set to begin on July 1, 2026. It will fund grants only for housing projects that meet three requirements: 1) A union pension co-investment, 2) A Project Labor Agreement (PLA), and 3) Participation in a union-run apprenticeship pipeline.
If a project doesn’t include union money, union labor, and union training, it does not qualify. In effect, the state has created a taxpayer-financed pipeline for union-built housing — financed with public debt and marketed as affordability.
Union pension funds are free to invest as they choose. But when the state designs a program that channels taxpayer dollars into projects benefiting specific labor groups, it becomes a form of state-sponsored favoritism, one that drives up construction costs and limits competition.
Connecticut already struggles to make housing pencil out. Land is expensive, interest rates are high, and local infrastructure often lags demand. Adding new PLA and pension requirements doesn’t stretch public dollars, it accelerates how quickly they’re spent.
The Irony Everyone Ignored
At the same conference, housing advocates acknowledged that the federal Davis–Bacon Act — which requires government-funded projects to pay “prevailing wages” often equal to union rates — was “driving up the cost to build housing.” David Gasson, founder of MG Housing Strategies, admitted that Davis–Bacon rules inevitably raise labor costs.
Yet Davis–Bacon is moderate compared to PLAs. It inflates wage rates but doesn’t dictate who can work or which contractors can bid. PLAs go much further by requiring union hiring halls, union benefit systems, union apprenticeship pipelines, and union work rules. If Davis–Bacon lifts the floor, PLAs build the whole house on top of it and padlock the front door.
When Washington imposes wage mandates, they’re criticized for driving up costs. When Hartford does the same thing through PLAs, it’s recast as “progress.”
Affordable Housing is Not Achieved Through Union Welfare
Connecticut cannot solve its housing shortage while ignoring the role that cost plays in construction. Programs that limit who can work, who can bid, and how projects are financed will only make the problem worse.
If lawmakers truly want to build more affordable housing, they should focus on policies that open bidding to all qualified contractors, streamline permitting, and remove unnecessary cost layers. Encouraging competition and allowing capital to flow freely would lower costs, speed construction, and stretch taxpayer dollars further.
The alternative is the status quo: fewer units, higher prices, and policies that sound ambitious but fail to address the basic economics of construction.
Connecticut families deserve more than symbolic gestures. They deserve housing policies grounded in transparency, competition, and fiscal responsibility — policies that recognize a simple truth: when building becomes more expensive, affordability moves further out of reach.
