Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds union-only projects
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The state Supreme Court has affirmed a lower court ruling giving the Department of General Services the green light to require union laborers work on its construction projects.
In a per curiam order affirming the Commonwealth Court's decision in Hawbaker v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the court was divided. Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Justice Thomas G. Saylor dissented in favor of oral argument and resolving the case through an opinion.
Commonwealth Court ruled in late 2009 that state entities are allowed to require any contractor bidding for a job to sign a labor agreement that promises no work stoppages and a timely finish to the project. In turn, the state entities promise to use all union workers and contractors that abide by collective bargaining agreements.
The opinion, written by Judge Dan Pellegrini, was a blow to a group of nonunion laborers who asked the court to enjoin the Department of General Services from using a project labor agreement, or PLA, on its renovations of SCI Graterford prison or on any other DGS projects moving forward.
The nonunion laborers argued the PLA unlawfully discriminated against nonunion workers by putting them at such a competitive disadvantage to union workers that they deprive nonunion shops from bidding or working on the projects. They also argued project labor agreements deprive the public of receiving the benefit of the lowest possible cost, according to the opinion.
Judge Pellegrini said there was little Pennsylvania law in this area, though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the agreements do not run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act.
"To the extent that a private purchaser may choose a contractor based upon that contractor's willingness to enter into a prehire agreement, a public entity as purchaser should be permitted to do the same," Judge Pellegrini wrote in citing a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case known as Boston Harbor, which dealt with the NLRA.
First Published January 31, 2011 12:00 am
