The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority insists that it won’t give in to Virginia officials who are threatening to cut funding for the $6 billion Dulles Metro rail project unless the authority drops its plans to use union labor.
Several authority leaders told The Washington Examiner that they have no intention of giving in to Virginia’s demands. If the state withholds its $150 million in retaliation for the authority’s preference for union labor, as officials threatened, the authority will simply pass the cost on to drivers on the Dulles Toll Road, another funding source for the project.
“The project does not need Virginia’s money,” MWAA board member Bob Brown said. “What needs Virginia’s money is the toll payers of Northern Virginia. They’re going to pay a lot of money. If Virginia doesn’t contribute, the project is still going to be built.”
Virginia state lawmakers, angry that MWAA is encouraging the use of union labor for the largest public works project in the right-to-work state, are insisting that the airports authority drop its plan to give contractors using a union-friendly labor agreement an advantage over nonunion firms bidding for the same work.
“The effect of losing state funds for the project, at minimum, greatly increases pressure on toll rates to the users of the Dulles Toll Road, and at worst threatens the entire project,” Loudoun County Board Chairman Scott York warned in a recent letter to MWAA.
Fairfax County Board Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, a Democrat, also called on MWAA to drop the labor agreement provision that would give union contractors a 10 percent scoring bonus during the bidding process, despite four other Democratic Fairfax board members applauding the use of union labor.
“It would be a tragic loss and a detriment to the project if the commonwealth withheld its $150 million contribution, as well as its ability to cooperate with MWAA, in the construction of Phase II,” Bulova wrote in a letter also signed by York and Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton, both Republicans.
Bulova said she wants the airports authority to replace the “labor agreement” language with a “commitment to ironing out workforce and safety issues in advance.”
“Our being able to get the money is being held up by some members of the General Assembly who believe that ‘project labor agreement’ is another word for ‘union,'” she said.
Airports authority spokeswoman Tara Hamilton, speaking on behalf of Chief Executive Officer Jack Potter, said the authority has no plans to change anything.
“We’re anticipating the $150 million,” she said. “Right now we don’t have any reason to believe that won’t be the case.”
