The airports authority in charge of the Dulles Rail project held its ground in a labor dispute with Virginia on Wednesday, insisting it would not give up its preference for union labor on the project despite the state’s threat to withhold $150 million unless it did so.
“If the labor agreement [on Phase I] worked, why would we say, ‘We don’t want to do that again, we want to change course’?” asked authority member Dennis Martire, who is also vice president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. “You do what’s right for the project, what’s right for the toll road riders, what’s right for the taxpayers, not what’s right for politics.”
Virginia officials claim that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is violating the spirit of the state’s right-to-work laws by encouraging the use of union labor on the $6 billion Metrorail project and threatened to withhold $150 million in state funding if the authority didn’t change course. The authority, however, said that if it lost the state funding it would shift the additional costs onto drivers on the Dulles Toll Road in the form of higher tolls.
“We aren’t changing anything,” authority member Bob Brown said. “We’re going to tell Virginia they should live up to the deal they made.”
With the two sides at loggerheads, Virginia officials indicated Wednesday that the state might be willing to increase its contribution to the project beyond the $150 million but only if the authority drops its preference for union labor.
“This issue has been raised within the context of the current budget deliberations,” Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told The Washington Examiner. “Any potential decisions to provide funding to Dulles Rail will be made by the General Assembly and the governor within the context of those discussions.”
Airports authority CEO Jack Potter said through a spokesman that the board is “constantly working with all of our project partners to address their concerns,” but denied any “quid pro quo discussions” about dropping union labor in exchange for additional funding.
In other business Wednesday, the airports authority agreed to give Loudoun County an extra 30 days to decide whether it wants to participate in the rail project.
Loudoun and Fairfax counties now have until July to decide whether they will contribute to the extension of the Silver Line from Reston into Loudoun County.
