About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1999 Alaska Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (1999)

handle is hein.sag/sagak0004 and id is 1 raw text is: MEMORANDUM State of Alaska Department of Law TO: Joseph L. Perkins, P.E. DATE: January 6, 1999 Commissioner Department of Transportation FILE NO.: 665-98-0098 TELEPHONE NO.: 451-2811 SUBJECT: Legality of Project Labor Agreements FROM: Paul R. Lyle Assistant Attorney General INTRODUCTION The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (department) is exploring the use of a specification in selected rural airport construction contracts that requires successful bidders to enter into project labor agreements. The agreements would require the contractor to obtain workers for that project exclusively through a union or trade council job referral system that would recruit and train workers, including those in the immediate community, to perform work on the project. You have asked whether project labor agreements may be lawfully required in airport construction contracts in rural communities. While our opinion is tailored to this specific issue, the analysis in this opinion applies to all departmental construction projects. The draft specification we have reviewed appears to require the successful bidder to negotiate a project labor agreement after obtaining a construction contract. However, project labor agreements are usually negotiated between owners and unions before the contract is advertised for bids. See, e.g., Building & Trades Council v. Associated Builders and Contractors, 113 S.Ct. 1190, 1192-93 (1993) (Boston Harbor). This approach is necessary in order to ensure a level competitive playing field for prospective bidders. Bidders cannot bid on a contract if they cannot ascertain the labor rules with which they will be required to comply once the contract is awarded. Therefore, this memorandum assumes that the department would undertake to negotiate with an appropriate trades council the terms of the project labor agreement before any rural airport construction project requiring use of a project labor agreement was put out to bid. The project labor specification would need to be revised to require the successful bidder to sign the project labor agreement as a condition precedent to the award of the contract.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most