Two contractor groups have asked a New York district court to look into a recent ruling in favor of project labor agreements between NYC and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York (BCTC). The groups, the Building Industry Electrical Contractors Association and the United Electrical Contractors Association, filed a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the Southern District of New York on August 31.
The filing follows U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson Jr.’s ruling in early August that PLAs between the city and the BCTC, an umbrella group that represents about 50 local trades unions, do not violate the National Labor Relations Act. The contractor groups claim, however, that the PLAs reduce the pool of contractors that bid, making it too expensive for some contractors to even bid at all, says Alan Pollock, a partner with NYC law firm Robinson Brog Leinward Greene Genovese & Gluck, who is representing the contractors.