The National Building Trades Council--a department of the AFL-CIO--is the parent organization of the local Massachusetts Building Trades Council. According to Joe Dart, president of the local organization, if the order goes forward, the Big Dig could be severely affected.
"There is $800 million of work yet to bid," he tells GlobeSt.com. "We have assured the Massachusetts Highway and Bechtel Parsons that there would be no disruptions in labor-related issues. That's the way it's been." Without that assurance, notes Dart, there are no guarantees that labor won't strike.
The Big Dig's project labor agreement, which was reached 11 years ago, stipulates that the state agrees to use union workers in exchange for the union's agreement not to strike during the duration of the project. There have been no work stoppages on the Big Dig thus far.
Dart notes that each trade group--such as the iron workers, the carpenters, the electricians--negotiates its contracts separately at different times, approximately every two to three years. "Every time a negotiation session occurs, there is always a chance there may be a disagreement," he points out.
Dart is confident that the Trades Council's injunction will be effective. He cites a Supreme Court decision rendered in the early 1990s regarding the Boston Harbor cleanup plan. There the Court said that Federal and state authorities are within their rights to create project labor agreements.
"The president is flying in the face of that ruling," he says. Dart accuses Bush of attempting to placate the conservative element that supported his bid for the presidency. "They want to deal directly with their workforce," he says. "They don't want to provide benefits, they want to get away as cheaply as possible. Every agreement that supports collective bargaining, they oppose."
If the injunction doesn't work, the Big Dig's project labor agreement has one last hope of survival in a possible exemption that is one of the provisions of the executive order. Massachusetts officials have reportedly attempted to seek an exemption for the Big Dig but so far have been unsuccessful.
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