Perhaps softer than the sound of a union rallying cry is the quiet protest some voters are staging at the ballot box, speaking out against union contracts they say are too costly.

“You are getting less product for a higher price and we believe in quality, accountability and value,” says Eric Christen of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, a group that lobbies on behalf of non-union contractors.

Christen says that voters in many communities throughout the Golden State are frustrated by the cost of union labor.

None more than the city of Chula Vista, a small community near San Diego, which Christen says lost a contract for a 32-acre hotel and entertainment complex because union leaders scared off investors by demanding a Project Labor Agreement (PLA), a term used to describe a legal agreement common between union contractors and public agencies.

And while Gaylord Entertainment, the sponsors of that project, will not confirm that organized labor kept them from pursuing the venture further, Christen says voters in Chula Vista responded this June by officially banning city officials from engaging in union agreements when negotiating future construction.

Meanwhile, union leaders say organized labor is bearing the brunt of the bad economy and the retribution some voters currently seek is misplaced.

“We have not found any evidence that project labor agreements have a negative effect on the cost of a project,” says Richard Slawson, executive secretary for the Building Trades Council of Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, a local division of the AFL-CIO.

Slawson cites a report published by the City of Los Angeles that concludes: “PLAs provide for orderly settlements of the labor disputes and grievances without strikes, lockouts or slowdowns.”

Slawson adds that union contractors abide by rules that independent workers often do not: “These are the same contractors that oppose safety regulations, that have all the violations for safety regulations that OSHA files. These are the contractors that are hiring undocumented workers to supplement their crews and take jobs that Americans do want.”

But more communities are taking Chula Vista’s lead.

This month, San Diego County supervisors passed an ordinance opening the bidding process for all construction projects to all contractors, both union and independent.

San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn believes this change in how the county does business will save his community 10 percent to 20 percent on future projects.

And in a 4-to-1 vote, the San Diego Supervisors decided to give their constituents the final word on whether to award contracts regardless of union affiliation. An initiative is slated for the November ballot.

Now proponents of union agreement bans are pointing their efforts to putting similar measures on other local ballots in Los Angeles, Sacramento and 20 other cities in California.

But success may be harder earned in these communities.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently signed a Project Labor Agreement for street repair services. In Long Beach, officials there sealed a deal with unions to maintain and operate its port, one of the largest shipping facilities in North America.

No matter how each community handles its contracts, public policy experts say it’s hard to really tell whether union contracts make projects more expensive since most academic research on the subject has not been conducted since the 1980s. The research that does exist is mostly inconclusive.

“On the one hand, you have union wages and benefits that are higher, on the other hand you have higher productivity,” says Daniel JB Mitchell a professor at UCLA’s School of Public Policy.

In addition, experts note that federal contracts, which dominate much of the nation’s new construction, have specific guidelines that must be followed, no matter the local laws or ordinances.

“The federal government, as a condition of granting federal money to state and local governments, says these are the general rules of the game that you are going to follow. You are probably going to see more of these project labor agreements now than you would have seen under similar kinds of projects under the Bush administration.” adds Mitchell.

Last year, President Obama signed an executive order that all large-scale federal construction projects will be completed using Project Labor Agreements.