As we prepare to honor the achievements of American workers and their contribution to building the greatest nation on earth, families around the state are planning their Labor Day weekend celebrations.  Very often these plans include traveling for one last vacation before summer ends.

If your Labor Day plans include crossing over Snoqualmie Pass, be sure to build extra travel time into your schedule.  The Washington state Department of Transportation (DOT) is warning traffic will be even slower than usual this holiday weekend across the pass thanks to road construction.

The project that will leave thousands of drivers stuck in traffic, rebuilding bridge decks just west of the pass, was supposed to be complete by Labor Day weekend.  DOT did not want to add construction slow-downs to the most heavily travelled pass on one of the most heavily travelled weekends of the year. 

But thanks to the recent strike of union concrete truck drivers, that is exactly what will happen.  DOT says the delay caused by the strike is to blame for the unfinished project and the impending Labor Day traffic nightmare.

The concrete truck driver strike held construction projects around King County hostage while the union (Teamsters Local 174) demanded higher pay and benefits.  The average wage for a concrete truck driver was $31 per hour, and the proposed 12% pay and benefit increase over three years wasn’t enough for the union (they accused the companies of not bargaining in good faith).  So the union rejected mediation efforts and called for a strike.

According to The Seattle Times, on August 11 the concrete truck drivers started their morning as usual and then walked away from trucks filled with ready-mix, perishable concrete and abandoned construction jobs in the middle of concrete pours, causing “untold financial damages.”

The reward for what one concrete company characterized as the union’s “deplorable action” was a quick concession of higher pay and benefits.  After just a week of striking during the busy summer construction season and stalling projects, the union bragged they negotiated “record-setting wage increases,” higher pension contributions, full maintenance of healthcare benefits and “most importantly of all” language protecting union work in King County “from being undercut by drivers brought in from outlying areas at lower wage rates.” 

Presumably those drivers from outlying areas would gladly work for $31 per hour, otherwise there would be no need for a provision prohibiting hiring them.  But competition is an anathema to unions, who prefer to operate from a monopoly position. Of course, the taxpayers who fund public projects like the bridge repairs on Snoqualmie Pass are on the hook to pay for that lack of competition. So union workers win by getting higher wages, more benefits and protection from those willing to work for lower wages.  The union bosses win by collecting even more union dues to add to their coffers.  Taxpayers lose because they pay for all of it in the long run.

It is ironic that as families around the state celebrate Labor Day and the contributions of the labor movement, many will spend hours of the holiday weekend stuck in gridlocked traffic, the direct result of the strong-arm tactics of a labor union that didn't think increasing $31 per hour wages by 12% was enough.  It is also ironic that their tax dollars will ultimately fund the reward given to the union for inconveniencing them (and thousands of other holiday weekend drivers) on one of the busiest driving weekends of the year.  On the bright side, they will have plenty of time while sitting in traffic to contemplate whether the contributions of today's labor unions are worth celebrating.