Was it a coincidence that the day after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker emerged victorious from a union-backed recall effort, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority threw in the towel on its mandatory project labor agreement, or PLA, for Phase 2 of Dulles Rail? The 11-1 vote June 6 reversed the MWAA Board’s official policy, which gave a 10 percent preference to unionized construction firms that bid on the transit project in right-to-work Virginia.
The sudden about-face was even more remarkable given MWAA’s defiant resistance as recently as last month, even after the Virginia General Assembly voted to withhold $150 million if the union-favored incentives remained. Although jettisoning the PLA removes one major obstacle, many other problems remain — including the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s unionized labor force. As Loudoun Supervisor Ken Reid pointed out, opting into Phase 2 will “forever expose our county’s taxpayers to … ever-rising wages and costly benefits Metro is unable to control.”
