Legislation intended to limit the use of union labor on the Dulles Rail project can’t be enforced against the board overseeing that construction, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office told state lawmakers this week.
The bill would withhold $150 million in state funding for the project unless the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority dropped its plans to require contractors on the $6 billion project to use union labor. But Cuccinelli’s office told a supporter of the bill, Sen. Dick Black, R-Loudoun, that the law only applied to state agencies, not regional bodies such as the airports authority.
Cuccinelli’s ruling is a setback for General Assembly Republicans who spent months trying to curb the airports authority’s power to require union labor on the second phase of the rail project, saying it violated Virginia’s right-to-work law.
“It is the Attorney General’s firm opinion that those bills have no impact whatsoever on mandatory union provisions being imposed by MWAA,” Black wrote to Loudoun County lawmakers. But Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton disagreed with the attorney general’s opinion. He said that under the bill, which passed the General Assembly but needs Gov. Bob McDonnell’s signature, the airports authority would have to drop its preferences for union labor if it wants the state’s $150 million.
“Obviously it would be our desire for [the airports authority] to drop any sort of preference for contractors that utilize or do not utilize organized labor,” Connaughton said.
The airports authority recently backed away from requiring contractors to use union labor. Instead, the authority intends to give any contractor bidding on the project an advantage if the company uses union labor.
The authority said that without Virginia’s $150 million, drivers on the Dulles Toll Road would have to pay even higher fees to finance the rail line to Washington Dulles International Airport.
Black said he feared the use of union labor would add $250 million to $500 million to the project’s cost.
“I don’t think [the airports authority] is acting in good faith,” Black said. “I think they have a dismal record of cost control, and they’re overly influenced by big union labor out of Maryland.”
The airports authority said earlier this month that giving union contractors an edge in the bidding does not discriminate against anyone.
In addition to the legislation on which Cuccinelli’s office ruled, Republicans put in the proposed state budget a provision that would prevent the authority from giving union firms any advantage in the bidding.
