It’s a $20 gadget approved by the International Plumbers Code that routinely shaves thousands off the cost of a construction project — in every state but Minnesota. And while to most it might seem trivial, the banning of “air-admittance valves” or AAVs by Minnesota lawmakers draws a disturbing picture of how labor unions routinely use political muscle to stifle innovation and institutionalize inefficiency and waste. AAVs simplify the venting of sewer gas, eliminating multiple vent stacks and slashing plumber man-hours from construction projects – something that sounds great to everyone but the Minnesota Pipe Trades Association, the state’s largest plumbers union. During court hearings in 2005, after AAVs were approved for interim use, Minnesota plumbers squawked because the invention would cost them work. “AAVs will eliminate traditional ventilation systems on which our livelihood depends,” said Timothy McQuillan, a member of the Minnesota Plumbing Advisory Council, in a signed affidavit. But since then the plumbers union has changed its tune and banning the valve is no longer about protecting jobs (and dues). Now the AAV is a silent stalking killer, hiding in the walls of nursing homes and kindergartens ready to strike with airborne e coli. The union’s prophecies, based on the conjectures of one unaccredited source without a scrap of credible evidence, fly in the face of years of AAV use around the world without one complaint, negative study or incident. Lawrence Justin, the only engineer on the Minnesota Plumbers Board, said AAVs are widely endorsed by engineering associations, including the American Society of Plumbing Engineers. “The valves have all the testing and approval that any other plumbing equipment has,” said Justin. Ignoring engineering research, Reps. Tim Mahoney and Tom Rukavina and Sen. David Tomassoni, all Democrats, instead latched onto the killer plumbing narrative of the MPTA and snuck a ban on AAVs into a 200+ page state budget bill in 2007 without notice or the expert hearings that are SOP for any changes to building code. Meanwhile, Minnesota union plumbing political action committees have contributed more than $235,000 to political candidates and causes since 2005, nearly $75,000 of which went directly to the House and Senate DFL caucuses. “These people are institutionalizing waste to their own economic benefit,” said John Diehl, president of Studor Inc. that annually sells 650,000 valves in North America alone. A ban on air-admittance valves is not exactly headline material or likely to attract the attention of even the most militant advocates of small government. And yet Minnesota businesses, homeowners and taxpayer are expected to absorb thousands per project in unnecessary costs only to maintain the bottom line of Minnesota plumbers unions. This also raises the question of how many other institutionalized inefficiencies are out there, protected by buried legislation or regulation, only to maintain a union boss’ lifestyle or punish an employer who wouldn’t play ball.
