Worker Advocate Files Brief in Dispute in Michigan Public Projects

Union bosses seek to uphold discriminatory system in awarding public contracts

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys have stepped in to promote freedom in the latest Michigan union boss debacle, flaunting a law forbidding project labor agreements. 

 Staff attorneys from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have filed a brief in support of a Michigan law prohibiting state and local government agencies from imposing so-called “project labor agreements†(PLAs) that require unionized workers for public projects. 

Foundation staff attorneys filed the amicus curiae (“friend of the courtâ€) brief yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit located in Cincinnati. 

Michigan recently passed a law prohibiting government-mandated PLAs on public construction projects.  Shortly thereafter, Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council and Genesse, Lapeer, Shiawassee Building and Construction Trades Council union bosses challenged the law in federal court, claiming federal labor law preempts the state’s ability to opt out of mandating PLAs on state-funded public construction projects. 

“Project Labor Agreements effectively discriminate against the 85 percent of all construction workers who are not under union monopoly control,†said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation.  “State and local governments owe it to the taxpayers to award public construction contracts to those who will do the best work at the best price, not employers who work with bureaucrats to shove a union down their workers’ throats.â€Â 

Read the complete story at The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation website.