EDITORIAL
Boston Globe
March 30, 2012
THE PATRICK Administration is pushing ahead with a costly and unfair policy by imposing a project labor agreement on the $260 million reconstruction of the Longfellow Bridge. The administration’s rationale for the agreement, known as a PLA, falls far short of justifying a union-workers-only pact that would put upward pressure on the project price, while effectively excluding the state’s many non-union construction workers and firms from the project.
Last week, Cyndi Roy, director of communications at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, confirmed that the department will use a PLA on the project if the Federal Highway Administration says okay. The principal reason a PLA is necessary, contends Roy, is that the MBTA’s Red Line runs over the Longfellow Bridge “and there are concerns that contractor employees that are not subject to a PLA mandated no-strike, no-job-action clause could lead to service issues on the Red Line.’’
But disruptive strikes and job actions are not something one commonly associates with non-union firms. Indeed, Greg Beeman, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts, an umbrella group for non-union construction firms, says he can’t recall a single incidence of a strike or job action by a non-union firm on a public job. Asked for examples, Roy failed to provide any, but said, via e-mail, that “there are many instances where union workers have set up picket lines and have disrupted work on non-union contracts.’’
The problem there, however, obviously lies with the union workers, not their non-union counterparts; if that’s really the administration’s big reason for a PLA, then it is letting the prospect of union misbehavior justify excluding non-union firms. That would be an egregiously wrong-headed response.
This is the second PLA that has been imposed under Patrick. The first was on the $750 million renovation and reconstruction of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, which the administration justified by citing the complexity of the project and the need to ensure against disruptive labor disputes.
If those rationales sound rather tinny, well, taxpayers should recall that Patrick pledged to support PLAs on an AFL-CIO endorsement questionnaire when he first ran for governor. And, further, that when he ran for reelection in 2010, he courted trade unions by noting that he had “directed that, going forward, project labor agreements be used when necessary.’’ They are never truly necessary, of course; though the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has said the exclusionary pacts are allowable on certain complex projects, it has also warned that they are anti-competitive.
ABC-LED COALITION APPEALS DECISION ON
“EMPLOYEE RIGHTS” POSTER REQUIREMENT
On March 5, the ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) appealed a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge who found that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has the authority to mandate its biased “employee rights” poster.
In addition to the appeal, CDW and several other groups also asked the Court of Appeals to enjoin enforcement of the rule, while the appeal is pending. Currently, the rule is scheduled to go into effect April 30.
The CDW, in conjunction with the National Association of Manufacturers, filed the lawsuit prompting the initial decision on Sept. 26, shortly after the NLRB released the final version of the poster, which contains only a select list of employee rights granted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
In the lawsuit, both groups asserted that the NLRB does not have the authority under the NLRA to issue the rule, to which the court disagreed. The court held the agency could not impose automatic sanctions for failure to post, as it the rule specified, however. The court went on to clarify that the agency nonetheless could still impose sanctions after investigating the matter if it determines the employer's failure to post in that specific case interfered with employees’ rights or warranted a tolling of the time limits.
In addition to its participation in the lawsuit and appeal, ABC has produced an 11-by-17-inch supplemental notice designed exclusively for nonunion contractors outlining additional rights granted under the NLRA. The supplemental notice is intended for optional use on or after the current April 30 effective date. Please note, the ABC notice can be posted in addition to the NLRB poster in a similar fashion, but not in lieu of it.
The official NLRB notice can be downloaded for free at www.nlrb.gov/poster and ABC’s supplemental notice can be accessed www.abc.org/nlrbposter.
ABC will keep members and chapters informed of any new developments regarding the legal challenges or the rule’s effective date.