Pseudo-CBA (or proto-CBA?) enforced by New York appellate court

Donald Trump's 1993 CBA-like contract relating to the New York City Riverside South project was the subject of a 2008 New York Appellate Division opinion. The court held that the contract's terms were expired. See more at Law of the Land.

CBA Coalition commences litigation in Pittsburgh.

On Friday, CBA coalition members in Pittsburgh initiated litigation to stop the development of a hotel. The suit claims that the Stadium Authority sold the land to the hotel developer at "substantially below market value" and that the sale violated the open meetings laws.

The groups have indicated that they will likely drop the litigation if the developers agree to a community benefits agreement. If that turns out to be the case, the CBA will take the form of a settlement agreement (similar to the recently finalized Dearborn Street CBA).

News coverage of the lawsuit is available from the Post-Gazette, the Tribune Review, and KDKA TV.

Riverside Motorsports Park CBA update

Back in February, a lower court in California ruled that the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Riverside Motorsports Park (RMP) in Merced was deficient, in part because the developer hadn't prepared a CBA, which had been included as a requirement in the master plan.

Last week, the Merced Sun-Star reported that the county and the groups that brought the lawsuit reached an agreement that the ruling voided most of the project's approvals. The agreement's "terms translate into even more uncertainty for RMP's already questionable future."

Before the project can go through, the article pointed out that RMP will have to go through a number of steps, including finishing that CBA, in order to get new approvals. Although this may press the timeline back, RMP officials are confident and plan to move forward. "[Q]uestions loom," however, "about the company's financial standing."

Asarco redevelopment in Tacoma, Washington

As reported in the Tacoma News Tribune, a lawsuit was filed against the City of Tacoma and Point Rouston LLC this week alleging errors in the environmental review and permitting process for the redevelopment of the old Asarco smelter site. The developer had earlier refused to negotiate a CBA with Washington Jobs for Justice, and while the developer believes that the suit was brought in retaliation for not signing a CBA, Washington Jobs with Justice sees the lawsuit as part of a larger campaign surrounding the project.

Retaliation probably isn't the best term to use in this context. Citizens groups, after all, have a right to oppose projects that they don't support, and CBAs were developed as a tool of compromise to allow community members and developers to find middle ground.

Columbia expansion update

I haven't heard much about the Columbia CBA recently, but a new website has been put up to detail the university's expansion and some litigation involving the planned construction of a subterranean chemical storage area.

Labor law, CBAs and the Supreme Court

California law prohibits employers that receive state money from interfering with union organizing. The United States Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case challenging the California law, Chamber of Commerce v. Brown, no. 06-939. The employers who initiated the suit claim that the National Labor Relations Act preempts the state regulations, but the Ninth Circuit disagreed and upheld the legislation.

How the Supreme Court decides this case will have major implications for labor agreements included in CBAs, since it directly questions the power of state and local governments to regulate private labor relations matters.

For more information on the case, see the ScotusWiki entry and the analysis of the oral arguments from the Workplace Prof Blog.

CBAs go to court (for the first time?)

The first case that I know of to deal with CBAs in any detail was issued this week. The case, Merced County Farm Bureau v. County of Merced (No. 150013, Sup.Ct., County of San Joaquin), was brought under the California Environmental Quality Act by community groups hoping to prevent the development of the Riverside Motorsports Park. In particular, they claimed that the environmental impact report (EIR) was inadequate. The court agreed, in part because the EIR in this case did not address the development agreement and community benefits agreement that had been required by the county when it approved the master plan. As the court explained, "[t]he environmental effects of the Master Plan cannot be evaluated properly without consideration of the Development Agreement and the Community Benefits Agreement that have not been drafted. The absence of this analysis renders the EIR defective as an informational document upon which the public and its officials can rely in making informed judgments. An analysis of the Development Agreement and the Community Benefits Agreement should appear in the EIR or at a mininum in an appendix."

What isn't clear about this case is how the CBA requirement arose in the first place, i.e. whether the county imposed the CBA requirement in response to community concerns about the project, or whether the county put the CBA requirement in the master plan in order to hold the developer to promises that it had made (I'll be checking into this). It's also not clear what the county had in mind when it made the CBA requirement. The minutes of the board of supervisors from December 16, 2006 (just prior to the master plan approval), simply state that "[t]he applicant shall enter into a Community Benefits Agreement that commits them [sic] to a series of benefits that are specific to the nature of the project and the needs of the local community." There's no indication as to whether the county expects the developer to negotiate with community groups or local officials about these benefits. It's also unclear how extensive the benefits have to be.

Still, even if the scope of the CBA is presently unknown, it's good news for CBA supporters that the court rejected the EIR due to the fact that the CBA hadn't yet been completed. CBA provisions may indeed be important to the environmental review of the project. However, this case may not supply persuasive precedent for future cases involving CBAs that aren't required by the municipality.

The planning documents for the Riverside Motorsports project, including the draft master plan and the EIR, are up on Merced County's website. For more information on reaction to the case, see this article in the Merced Sun-Star.

Updated June 11, 2008, here.

Penguins update

After weeks of negotiations without a CBA, the Pittsburgh One Hill Coalition announced yesterday that it had filed a lawsuit to block construction of the new Penguins Arena. The suit , filed just before the appeals deadline, seeks to overturn the approval of the arena's master plan. One Hill wants work on the arena to be postponed until a CBA is finalized, and the lawsuit may be dropped if a deal is reached.

Another article about the suit (with a few more details) is available here.