Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Legislators Spike Mandatory PLA for State Projects

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Virginia legislators delivered a rebuke to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) yesterday when both the House and Senate passed bills that would prohibit government-mandated Public Labor Agreements (PLA) on state and state-assisted projects in Virginia. The MWAA board had previously declared its intention to mandate a PLA requiring a union workforce for Phase 2 of the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project.

HB 33, sponsored by Del. Barbara Comstock, R-McLean, passed on a mostly party-line vote 69 to 27, while SB 242, sponsored by Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, passed the bill in a 20-20 vote in which Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling broke the tie.

MWAA now faces a tough decision. It can maintain its support for a mandated PLA as the time grows nigh to solicit bids for Phase 2, or it can risk losing the $150 million in supplemental funding promised by the state late last year in a restructuring of the project’s financing.

Foes argued that the PLA would discourage many non-union construction firms from bidding on the METRO extension, which is estimated to cost $2.8 billion. Fewer bidders increases the likelihood of a higher price by the winning contractor. Additionally, legislators argued that because the vast majority of Virginia’s construction workers are non-union, any agreement requiring the prime contractor to hire from a union work hall would mean that many workers would end up coming from Maryland.

The McDonnell administration had previously publicized a Memorandum of Agreement with MWAA that upheld the rights of non-union workers under the Virginia right to work law. But there was confusion as to what that MOA meant for the mandatory PLA. In the lead-up to the House and Senate votes, however, administration officials made it clear that they opposed mandatory PLAs.

Now the ball’s in MWAA’s court. The board has refused to seat two new board members appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell until Virginia and Washington, D.C., ratify changes to the bistate compact governing MWAA. That means the existing MWAA board will have a free hand until the necessary ratification goes into effect July 1. There is a high probability that MWAA will issue its guidelines for the Phase 2 bids before then. According to a recent “presolicitation paper,” MWAA expects to issue its RFP in May.

The MWAA board meets again Feb. 15, but it has to be careful not to antagonize McDonnell and the Republican-dominated General Assembly — MWAA still needs that $150 million in supplemental state funds to make the Phase 2 project financing work. If cooler heads prevail, MWAA may keep mum on its intentions until after the General Assembly session, giving legislators no cause to deny the extra money. I’m not enough of a parliamentarian to know what happens if the General Assembly approprites the funds but MWAA subsequently includes a mandatory PLA in its RFP. Is there a way for McDonnell to withhold the funds?

Whatever the answer, this drama is far from over.

— JAB

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15 responses to “Legislators Spike Mandatory PLA for State Projects”

  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    The MWAA has the cover it needs. It will now drop the mandatory PLA requirement. Big labor will blame the Republicans in Virginia. Virginia’s Dems will claim they tried but just didn’t have the votes.

    Everybody now has cover.

    Case closed.

  2. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    well no. The MWAA will go right back to making other decisions under the covers.

    We’ve only changed the blanket.

  3. constructionandlaborguy Avatar
    constructionandlaborguy

    Great news for Virginians. But you watch, MWAA will fight this just like they fought the new MWAA board members from Virginia.

    Martire will figure out a way to fix the construction contracts to make sure his union members have to be used by contractors. This is far from over.

  4. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Constructionandlaborguy:

    Virginia’s General Assembly had the authority to vote Virginia’s two board members onto the MWAA board immediately. The vote was taken, the measure lost.

    Do you really propose that the MWAA “veto” the Commonwealth of Virginia and seat the two new board members after the General Assembly has declined to ask for immediate seating?

    If you are frustrated over the seating of Virginia’s two new board members you should vent that frustration at the General Assembly who voted down a bill which would have done just that.

    Martire probably will try to sneak some pseudo-PLA logic into the contracts. However, once again, where is the root cause? Was Matire, a long time union organizer, put on the board by the union lovers in DC? by the socialists in Maryland? No. He was appointed by the governor of Virginia. The governor is now running for US Senate from Virginia and has a very good chance of winning.

    Even the recent PLA vote in the state Senate was a 20 – 20 tie with Bill Bolling casting the tie breaking vote. Hardly a stunning rebuke to the mandatory PLA idea.

    Your tone of your commentary about the MWAA board forcing bad decisions on the majority of Virginians is a challenge to understand.

    Richmond is THE problem.

  5. HardHatMommy Avatar
    HardHatMommy

    DJ,
    You should attend an MWAA meeting. I think you need to experience that first hand to really understand why you can’t place the blame solely on Richmond. Try to go to a meeting; it’s eye opening and sickening.

    As far as the 20 20 vote in the senate, that’s all about the cash. I talked to a couple of senators off the record who admitted they weren’t fans of PLAs. They were surprisingly empathetic during the conversations. But both were clear that they can’t risk angering the unions. Their perspective was that they would not get the contributions they need to win re-election if they voted the wrong way. It’s how our system works.

    Would you run for office? And if you did, what would you do if major contributors to your campaign told you they wouldn’t give you any more money if you didn’t vote their way? I would like to say that i would stand my ground and disregard the pressure. But then again, maybe after spending time, energy and money running for office, I would give in and do what the money people wanted me to do. I will never be in that position so I will never know what it’s like or how I would react.

    If we are gong to be disgusted by something, it is the game itself. We have let money from big labor, big banks, big entertainment, etc buy the conscience of our political system.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      HHM:

      “If we are gong to be disgusted by something, it is the game itself.”.

      Perhaps true. However, the rules of the game are written by the political class.

      All through history there have been examples where the political class has written rules that so favored themselves they became utterly discredited in the minds of the people. Two things strike me about those situations. First, I am stunned by how long people will put up with an obviously corrupt kleptocracy. Second, I shudder when I think of how violently those regimes fall.

      Our General Assembly’s attitude toward the people mimics that of Marie Antoinette. “Let them eat cake.”. Dear Marie would ultimately find that she too would be invited by the people to “eat cake”. However, that invitation was delivered only after her head was detached from the remainder of her body. This, needless to say, made the chewing of the cake quite difficult.

      Let’s hope that our government, at all levels, comes to its senses before the almost certain cataclysm is unleashed. For one thing is sure – it may take a long time for the fuse to burn down to the powder keg but the resulting explosion happens in the wink of an eye.

      As for me running for office, you never know.

      Here’s what it costs to run for state senate in the various states:

      http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/ttw/trends_map_data_table.aspx?trendID=19&assessmentID=10&mode=table

      The data is a few years old and I assume that running as a challenger (vs incumbent) is more expensive than the average.

      Call it $500,000.

      That’s 200 donations of $2,500 each.

      That’s a challenge but possible.

      However, that’s not the point.

      In the last election Dick Saslaw spent just under $1.9M vs his opponent’s spend of $26,000. Saslaw, a long time incumbent, won with just under 62% of the vote. In other words, it was never a contest.

      http://www.vpap.org/offices/profile/111?election_id=1414

      So, why did Tricky Dick spend almost $2M when he would have been re-elected if he would have spent $50,000?

      Because Sen. Saslaw wasn’t just funding his own campaign. He was funding lots of things:

      http://www.vpap.org/committees/profile/money_out_recipients/1696?start_year=2008&end_year=2011&lookup_type=year&filing_period=all

      Dominion, alone, donated $80,000 to a candidate whose opponent only spent $26,000 in total.

      http://www.vpap.org/committees/profile/money_in_donors/1696?end_year=2011&filing_period=all&filter_schedule=A&lookup_type=year&max_years=50&order=amount&page=1&start_year=2008&submenus=pacs

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    agree. any belief that by not taking union money – the candidate is free of influence money is misguided.

    Sometimes I get the impression that some consider union money terrible but corporate money is just fine because we dislike unions but love business.

    it’s not union or business “money”… it’s “Influence” money.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      The point about the union money is a combination of the size of the total and the starkness of how it is distributed. Millions upon millions of dollars donated exclusively and totally to Democratic candidates.

      Can you find another industry which so blatantly buys influence from a single party?

      Can you find any donor which contributes so much to only the Republican Party?

  7. constructionandlaborguy Avatar
    constructionandlaborguy

    I think the influence of union money and corporate money in politics is unavoidable, overwhelming and unfortunate. I don’t see how there will ever be real reform, sadly.

    Larryg, I take the opposite POV. I think if you polled average Americans, people would think union money is good, or at least less offensive, compared to “evil” corporate money.

    In an ideal world, there would be no money in politics, but that is the nature of the beast.

    There is certainly corporate money involved in the Phase 2 Silver Line issue.

    There are the pro-metro line developers and real estate folks ready to line their pockets as a result of the metro line.

    Bechtel, the Phase 1 prime contractor who voluntarily entered into the PLA, is giving money to candidates who support a PLA mandate. It gives them an advantage in the bidding process.

    Plus, they received a sweetheart tax break deal from Gov. McDonnell to relocate from Maryland to Virginia. Unions call that corporate welfare.

    The contractor groups and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce give money to candidates opposed to PLA mandates. At least all they are asking for is a level playing field and a chance to fairly compete, unlike Bechtel and the unions, who want their special interest influence to achieve an unfair advantage in the bidding process and a labor supply monopoly.

    While I concede it isn’t as large of a problem in Virginia as in other states, construction unions get their handouts through government-mandated PLAs, prevailing wage laws and requirements that workers pay union dues as a condition of employment.

    And DJ, my understanding is that Virginia took the vote to seat the new MWAA appointees because MWAA insisted they be approved through the legislative process (betting big on the legislative assessment that Virginia didn’t have the votes to pass legislation with an emergency clause, resulting in a delayed July 1 seating of new Virginia MWAA members). It would have wasted time and money for Virginia to litigate MWAA’s opinion (more importantly, it could have resulted in litigation against the legitimacy of MWAA’s future Phase 2 project decisions) and they may have not received a decision past July 1 anyways. My understanding is that it was a calculated opportunity cost. The truth is that If MWAA had cooperated, this likely would have been a non-issue.

    So yes, Richmond is a problem. But clearly MWAA is not blameless.

    I think Big Labor deserves some of that blame. Just look at their overwhelming influence in Virginia and U.S. politics.

    According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the Laborers Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition has donated $419,050 to Virginia candidates and political action committees since 2007 — overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates. Creigh Deeds, unsuccessful candidate for governor, scooped up $250,000. Moving Virginia Forward, Tim Kaine’s PAC, garnered $55,000. LiUNA kicked in another $200,000 to the Democratic Party of Virginia in 2008. It is no coincidence that MWAA Board member, architect of MWAA’s attempted Silve Line’s Phase 2 PLA mandate and LiUNA Mid-Atlantic Vice-President Dennis L. Martire was appointed by Gov. Kaine (D), in July 2009.

    And unions support and control other Democrats from MD, DC and the White House who appointed the other MWAA board members. That’s why union interests control MWAA.

    And Mr. Bacon demonstrated how Labor’s influenced killed the legislation needed to immediately seat the new Virginia MWAA appointees.

    Influence money is to blame for this mess.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      As far as I can see, Bechtel has donated just over $75,000 in the last 12 years.

      Maybe they operate under some other name but this is what I get:

      http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/113133?end_year=2011&filter_cmte=all&filter_cmte_radio=all&lookup_type=year&max_years=50&order=amount&page=1&start_year=1999&submenus=donors

    2. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      “So yes, Richmond is a problem. But clearly MWAA is not blameless.”.

      I agree completely. My ranting at Jim Bacon represents my belief that he sees the MWAA’s role as a problem but refuses to “back track” to the ultimate cause of the problem – the political elite in Richmond.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I don’t take the union side here… and I acknowledge the thuggery present in a lot of unions but unions are perceived to be looking out for workers interests better than corporations do.

    I’m not sure I agree that people support unions any more – at least not in places like Va and most southern right-to-work states.

    Most unions are Northeast/Rust Belt critters and they have a long history that go back to the times when corporations would themselves hire armed thugs to break unions.

    with respect to VPAP – I bet if you totaled up all the union money and then totaled up all the corporate money -it would be no contest.

    unions are players but they are pikers compared to the overall corporate money.

    finally, this is not something new. Influence money is a time-honored tradition….

    and you’d be surprised what VPAP has to do to get the information because Va still allows paper reporting of money that then has to have VPAP folks convert it to electronic.

    You think Va would pass a law requiring 24hr electronic disclosure?

    nope. why not? the influence money is opposed to it.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      “You think Va would pass a law requiring 24hr electronic disclosure?

      nope. why not? the influence money is opposed to it.”.

      “Influence money” doesn’t pass laws, Larry. The Clown Show in Richmond passes the laws.

      Once again, you can’t figure out who really bears the blame.

  9. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    ” “Influence money” doesn’t pass laws, Larry. The Clown Show in Richmond passes the laws.”

    influence money is what determines what Richmond does with laws.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      True. So, if you want to limit that influence – you have two potential courses of action:

      1. Find all the influence buyers (millions of people?) and try to convince them to stop doing what they are doing through moral suasion.

      2. Lead a determined attack on the General Assembly members (140 people) for taking the money that the influence buyers pay.

      I think #2 has a better chance of success.

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