Labor Pact Readies Delayed Maryland Purple Line for Major Restart
Full-scale construction on Maryland’s Purple Line light-rail system appears set to resume after Labor Day, with the long delayed project's new design-build joint venture inking a project labor agreement with one of metropolitan Washington, D.C.’s largest craft unions.
The Dragados-OHL-led team, selected last year by the project's private management consortium to take over the project after its previous Fluor-led JV departed in 2020, completed negotiations with Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 11 in late August on an agreement that will cover the remaining four years of construction.
“This works for everyone,” says Local 11 business manager Steve Lanning, adding that the Dragados-OHL team, called Maryland Transit Solutions, "will be assured of having quality craft labor for a major, long-term project, and be able to budget accordingly.”
Local 11, which had a labor agreement with the previous construction team, will be the largest craft union involved on the project, with more than 200 members expected to be on site, he says.
Completion of a tunnel for the underground western terminus station in Bethesda will be among the restart’s priorities, he says, along with above-ground excavation and foundation work at multiple locations on the 16.2-mile transit line across densely populated Washington suburbs in two counties.
“The rail work, when it gets started, will be huge for us,” Lanning adds. Read more here.
