Loudoun County Cancels Procurement After Contractors Sue Over Illegal PLA Mandate

Lawsuit alleged that PLA requirement violated two Virginia laws.

Read the lawsuit here.

Today, Loudoun County cancelled the procurement of a new government office building after two contractors sued the County over the procurement’s requirement for a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) last week.  The lawsuit – filed by Coakley & Williams Construction, Ennis Electric, and the Associated Builders and Contractors Virginia Chapter – argued that the PLA mandate violated Virginia’s Right to Work Law, the Virginia Public Procurement Act, and the Virginia Constitution.

Virginia’s Right to Work Law prohibits agreements “whereby any such union organization acquires an employment monopoly in any enterprise.”  Such agreements are considered an illegal combination or conspiracy under Virginia law, and organizations that enter into such agreements would commit a misdemeanor under Virginia law.  Thus, the plaintiffs argued that the County’s PLA requirement would have forced local contractors to commit a crime by entering an employment monopoly on the project with the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council, the county’s selected labor organization for the PLA.

Similarly, Virginia’s Public Procurement Act requires competition on all public procurements in the Commonwealth to be maximized and not developed in a way to arbitrarily or capriciously exclude any qualified vendor. Earlier this year, however, the County conducted a survey that showed over half of contractors who had previously performed work for the County would not bid on the project due to the PLA.  The plaintiffs argued that the PLA requirement violated this core requirement of the law.

Rather than contest the lawsuit in court, the County cancelled the solicitation two days before a court hearing on the plaintiff’s request for an injunction halting the procurement.