HARRISBURG -- State officials wanted to start work months ago on the first of three new prisons to ease crowding in the corrections system, a problem that has forced 2,000 inmates to be shipped out of state.

But a groundbreaking date for the first new State Correctional Institution, to be built in Centre County, is still not known, and a major reason can be summed up in three words -- Project Labor Agreement.

Rendell administration officials and labor unions favor PLAs, but nonunion builders don't, and the competition between union and nonunion builders for the lucrative prison construction work has been fierce.

In 2008, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell's administration signed a deal with union contractors to use PLAs to build the new prisons. The first prison -- SCI Benner, to be located in Benner Township near the existing SCI Rockview -- will cost about $200 million and hold 2,000 inmates.

A second new prison will be twice that size -- holding 4,000 inmates and costing about $400 million. It will be built near the aging SCI Graterford in suburban Philadelphia and will be the new home for its 3,700 inmates. The current prison is to be emptied and mothballed.

Though the Benner and Graterford projects are months late in getting under way, the state now hopes to award contracts for them this spring and break ground this summer.

A third new prison, holding 2,000 prisoners and also costing about $200 million, is to go in Fayette County, at a site still to be announced. The goal is to have that project under way late this year, with all three prisons to be completed in about three years.

Although the Corrections Department operates the state's system of 27 prisons, the three construction projects are being handled by the Department of General Services, which has been tangling with a group of nonunion contractors over the labor agreements since last summer.

General Services agreed two years ago with a group of politically powerful labor unions -- the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council -- to use the agreements for the prisons.

Construction "will require that labor organizations affiliated with the Building Trades will be the exclusive bargaining agents for all construction labor trades and crafts workers on each such project," states a letter signed in April 2008 by James Creedon, secretary of the Department of General Services and a Rendell appointee, and Frank Sirianni, president of the state Building and Construction Trades Council.

Mr. Creedon said in an interview that his department saw the agreements as a way to ensure that qualified construction workers were used on the projects and that strikes were avoided, so the projects would be completed competently and as quickly as possible. There also was fear that labor leaders would oppose the legislation for the prison projects if PLAs weren't used.

PLAs resulted "because the Building and Construction Trades Council intended to oppose [a state law which] appropriated funds for ... the construction of several new correctional facilities," said Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini in a December ruling.

Nonunion firms see PLAs as a sign that labor unions are too cozy with some Democratic politicians. But Mr. Creedon said that PLAs have been used on other major projects that aren't being directed by the state, such as Pittsburgh's new hockey arena and Philadelphia's expanded convention center, without any legal challenges to slow things down.

Numerous nonunion construction firms, led by Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc. of State College, oppose the agreements. Radio ads, billboards in Harrisburg and a Web site, theendangeredspecies.org, have sprung up to "Fight PLA Discrimination."

When state officials sought construction proposals for SCI Benner in July, they included the use of PLAs. Unhappy nonunion firms responded by filing suit. They said the requirement would force nonunion construction workers to join the Building Trades and then be hired out of a union hiring hall. Union wages, which usually are higher than nonunion wages, would have to be paid on the projects, but the nonunion firms said that wasn't the problem.

Critics said the state shouldn't force nonunion workers to join a union if they don't want to. Also, nonunion firms feared they might not be able to hire their own workers for a job if they had to hire through a union-controlled hiring hall, which often bases decisions on seniority.

The nonunion firms also said union work rules might force the hiring of more workers than needed and drive up the cost of a project.

By insisting on a PLA, the plaintiffs said in legal papers, the state "has effectively precluded a large number of qualified firms and individuals from working on the [Benner] project, as a significant percentage of Pennsylvania's workforce is nonunion."

The request for an injunction to stop the Benner project ended in August when the state rejected all six proposals it had received because all of them were too high -- meaning they exceeded the $200 million budgeted for the work.

But legal wrangling resumed in September when General Services sought bids for the new Graterford prison. Nonunion firms again sued over the PLA requirement but this time, Judge Pellegrini ruled in the state's favor, denying the plaintiffs' request for an injunction to stop the project.

In his ruling, he said, "The public would be harmed" if he granted the injunction because it would delay efforts to ease overcrowded and possibly dangerous conditions in state prisons. The decision is being appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The Benner project now has been delayed for nine months. Mr. Creedon said it's ironic that with hundreds of construction workers out of work, the opponents of the labor agreements have prevented the prison projects from getting started and putting people to work.

New Benner construction proposals were sought last week and a contract could be awarded by early May.

"We can't wait around any longer," Mr. Creedon said, adding that he hoped the Benner prison work would begin by early summer.

PLAs won't be mandated this time for the Benner prison, a decision that Diane Tokarsky, a lawyer for nonunion builders, called "encouraging."

However, a PLA will be required when the new bids are sought for the Graterford prison project this spring, said General Services spokesman Ed Myslewicz. The department will do so because it has a court decision affirming the use of the agreement for that project, he said.

To try to speed construction, the prison projects will use a "design build" procedure, meaning construction on the initial phases can get under way before all the architectural designs on the later phases have been completed.

General Services wants to seek new proposals for Graterford by mid-April and have work start by mid-summer. Mr. Creedon expects to announce the site of the new Fayette prison soon and hopes to have construction start there by the end of the year.

Crowding in the state's 27 existing prisons should ease after all three of the new facilities are open, but that won't be for several years. The system officially has space for 43,000 inmates but, due to mandatory sentencing laws for many crimes, the population soared past 51,000 in January and continues to climb.

That situation led to the decision to transfer 2,000 inmates to prisons in Michigan and Virginia, moves that started in February and will be completed by April. Corrections also is adding cells at a few existing prisons, but that won't avert the need for the three new large prisons. Since each prison could take up to three years to finish, it will be a while before the Corrections Department can bring back those 2,000 inmates.

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