In the biggest business-labor disagreement of the session, a Senate panel advanced a bill barring public bodies from requiring union contracts on construction projects. Senate Bill 76 by Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, passed 4-2 on a party line vote in Senate Labor Committee before a room packed with business and labor representatives. If passed, the bill would affect state and local government projects, but not federal ones. There are no so-called project labor agreements in force in the state today, but, says one contractor lobbyist, “We don’t want none.”
— The major showdown of the session so far comes on Monday, when the House takes up House Bill 537 to merge the University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans starting in 2013. The bill’s author, Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, believes he has the two-thirds vote to move the bill, which has been heavily lobbied by the Jindal administration, to the Senate. Members of the Legislative Black Caucus, with 20 House members, have said they have the 36 votes to block the measure. “Not on my tick sheet they don’t,” says Tucker.
(John Maginnis will publish a daily update on the legislative session at 3 p.m., available to LaPolitics Weekly subscribers on the Subscribers Only page at LaPolitics.com. You can register your user name and password on the Lapolitics home page.)
