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BCTD To Take Bush to Supreme Court Over PLA Order August 30, 2002 The ongoing legal dispute between the Bush Administration and the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, may make it to the highest court in the country. The battle started only weeks after President Bush took office, when he signed in February 2001 an executive order banning the use of project labor agreements on federally-funded construction projects. The latest salvo in the escalating court skirmishes ended in July with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Court reversing a lower court ruling in the BCTDs favor. That November 2001 decision said Bushs order illegally violated the National Labor Relations Act, "removing an economic weapon from labor organizations, federal agencies and the recipients of federal funding." Now the BCTD is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the July decision upholding the Bush ban. In 1993, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the use of PLA's on public projects in a case involving the cleanup of Boston Harbor. "PLAs have long been an effective blueprint for accomplishing projects in a timely, efficient manner," said IBEW International President Ed Hill. "The president should not, with one stroke of his pen, override state and local decisions about how to conduct their construction projects." PLAs are collective bargaining agreements permitted under the NLRA that establish common work rules for an entire construction site. They have been used in hundreds of projects in the private and public sectors to coordinate operations of construction contractors. "We are taking this case to the highest court in the land because we will not stand by and watch the National Labor Relations Actwhich gives rights to both workers and employersbe disassembled by executive order," said BCTD President Edward Sullivan. In the original lawsuit challenging the executive order, the 14 unions comprising the BCTD were joined by the city of Richmond, California. The states of California, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts filed briefs in the support of the unions position, as did several national contractors associations. Thirty-two Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote letters of protest to President Bush following the executive order.
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 BCTD to Fight Courts PLA Decision - 7/16/02.Federal Judge Overturns Bush PLA Ban - 12/05/01.Judge Rules For Labor - 8/14/01.Bush Alters PLA Order - 4/30/01.BCTD Press Release - 04/27/01. |
