Labor issues could plague long-delayed veterans cemetery project

WASHINGTON – On top of the delays and cost overruns, the new veterans cemetery being constructed in Pembroke now potentially faces labor trouble.

The Buffalo Building and Construction Trades Council has been pushing for a project labor agreement at the site, meaning the construction contracts would have to go to unionized companies. And the local labor group has a powerful ally: Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.

But the Department of Veterans Affairs says it's too late to include a project labor agreement at the site.

Paul Brown, the president of the building trades council, isn't happy about that.

"We're going to protest these guys," Brown said last week. "There's no question about it."

Schumer, a New York Democrat who has been the cemetery's most prominent advocate, made the case for organized labor's involvement in the project in a Nov. 19 letter to Veterans Secretary Robert Wilkie.

"Aside from providing work for local Western New Yorkers, a (project labor agreement) provides additional structure, professionalism, productivity and stability to federal construction projects and thus promotes the successful and expeditious completion of construction projects like this one," Schumer wrote.

Wilkie has not yet responded to Schumer's letter, a spokewoman for the senator said.

Brown, meanwhile, pressed that point last week in a meeting with Randy C. Reeves, the VA's undersecretary for memorial affairs, who visited the Pembroke site last week. He said a project labor agreement might be able to save costs – and that it would result in more veterans working on the construction site.

"All this guy kept talking about, this Randy guy, was he wants a place to put veterans in the ground," Brown said. "Well, what about the ones that are above it still? Come on!"

Others, however, are not nearly so thrilled with the idea of requiring union labor on a project that's already at least $10 million over its original budget.

"In my view, it's only going to muddy the water," said Patrick W. Welch, a longtime Buffalo veterans advocate who attended the meeting with Reeves last week.

The contractor on the project – Albert Urban of Global Urban Enterprises of Victor – said during the meeting that he is hiring both union and nonunion subcontractors, but that he's paying the same prevailing union wage to all of them, Welch said. Urban did not return a phone call seeking comment.

What's more, Welch said he feared that requiring union labor might run afoul of a federal law that aims to make sure that such work goes to companies owned by disabled veterans.

Meanwhile, the VA said a project labor agreement could only have been included in the original contract for the project, and that neither bidder proposed including one.

"It is against Federal Acquisition Regulation to add a PLA after the fact," said Les' Melnyk, chief of public affairs and outreach at the VA's National Cemetery Administration. "The request must be made during procurement. In the case of this acquisition, contractors could propose bids with or without a PLA."

Contractors often oppose public labor agreements, fearing they would increase costs – which have already proven to be a huge concern at the veterans cemetery.

The VA broke the Pembroke cemetery project into two phases after the first round of bids for the project came in over the $36 million in federal funding already set aside for the project.

The agency says it needs another $10 million from Congress for the next phase of the project, but in his letter to the VA secretary, Schumer expressed concerns about whether the VA's cost estimates are still off target.

He urged the agency to re-evaluate its cost estimate for the project's next phase using a 12-step process recommended by the Government Accountability Office in a recent report that criticized the VA for cost overruns at veterans cemeteries.

If that additional $10 million isn't enough, Schumer told the VA secretary: "I urge you to include additional funding in the administration's FY21 budget request to address any shortfall revealed by this re-evaluation."

Schumer also asked Wilkie to reconsider the VA's plan to delay the next phase of the project from 2020 to 2022, and to reconsider its decision to remove construction of a perimeter fence and stone wall from its cemetery plans.

Reeves, the VA undersecretary, traveled to Pembroke in part to allay concerns veterans have about the cemetery, which was first proposed more than a decade ago and that has been plagued by delays ever since.

William Joyce, the director of veterans services in Genesee County, said he was pleased with the meeting.

"I feel real confident" that there won't be any more delays or cost overruns, said Joyce, who added that Reeves is "110 percent committed" to the project.

But Welch left the meeting with doubts.

"You know, I'm an accountant by profession and when I asked specific monetary questions, I got a runaround," Welch said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story identified Patrick Welch as the Erie County veterans advocate. He no longer serves in that official capacity.