Anti-union PLA decision upheld
It appears as if the discretion to use project labor agreements (PLAs) on federally funded construction projects will solely be in the hands of whomever is sitting in the Oval Office.

In a setback for the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department and the thousands of workers it represents, the U.S. Supreme Court has essentially upheld President Bush's order prohibiting project labor agreements on federally funded construction projects. On Jan. 27, the Supreme Court announced without additional comment that it would refuse to hear the building trades' appeal of a lower court ruling, which also upheld Bush's position.

State and local jobs that use federal money are apparently also barred from entering into project labor agreements. "We will be evaluating alternative strategies for enabling these entities, their construction managers and our building and construction trades councils to continue to reap the benefits of project labor agreements on major public works projects that receive federal funds," said Building Trades Department President Edward Sullivan

One of President Bush's first executive orders after he took office in 2000 was to prohibit the use of PLAs on federal projects. That overturned an executive order by President Clinton which required the use of PLAs on federal projects. The Building Trades Department sued to block the ruling, and won in U.S. District Court. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned that ruling, and the Supreme Court, in opting not to take the case, agreed.

Project labor agreements have been used on hundreds of public and private construction projects for the past 50 years. For workers, the project is guaranteed to use signatory contractors paying prevailing wage rates, while contractors and owners get a stable, reliable workforce that will toil under a common set of work rules, including no strike/no lockout clauses.

U.S. construction starts tripartite group
For the first time, construction union presidents, owners and contractors have come together to address construction cost-effectiveness on a national level.

On Jan. 18, a group of the industry's top leaders announced that they have begun a tripartite initiative to seek "attainable, measurable and meaningful" ways to improve the North American construction industry. The goals of the group sound a lot like the goals of the Labor-Owner-Contractor summit here in Michigan, which was formed 10 years ago and evolved into the Great Lakes Construction Alliance.

"The construction industry historically has been compartmentalized into different interest groups, with different agendas for success," said Edward Sullivan, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department. "There is little doubt we have taken the first positive step toward real tripartite collaboration in our industry."

The group agreed to focus initially on the elimination of jurisdictional disputes, making productivity improvements, and bettering safety performance.

"There are tremendous untapped opportunities for owners, contractors and labor to collaborate," said Bill Tibbitt of Johnson and Johnson, and president of the Construction Users Roundtable. "I am very encouraged at this first step to do so."

Added Robert Fitzgerald, president of the Mechanical Contractors Association of America: "We look for some very positive results over the months and years to come."