U.S. Judge's Ruling Backs Wilson Bridge Labor Pact
A U.S. District Court Judge handed the Bush Administration an embarrassing defeat yesterday, holding that the president's executive order prohibiting project labor agreements (PLA's) in projects funded in whole or in part by the federal government was a violation of the NLRA and the Constitution. PLA's are agreements reached by unions and---usually government---employers that set up binding contracts protecting the rights of the workers employed by contractors, while leaving the choice of contractors up to the employer and the hiring of union and/or non-union labor up to the chosen contractor. The judge in this case ruled that PLA's, which have been used extensively on federally funded projects in the past, are a protected economic weapon, and that it was entirely legal for the Maryland state government to enforce such an agreement covering the construction of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
See "U.S. Judge's Ruling Backs Wilson Bridge Labor Pact", BILL MILLER and KATHERINE SHAVER, The Washington Post, November 7, 2001