218
OCTOBER TERM, 1992
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the first circuit
No. 91-261. Argued December 9, 1992—Decided March 8, 1993*
Following a lawsuit over its failure to prevent the pollution of
Boston Harbor, petitioner Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA)—the state agency that provides, inter alia, sewage services for eastern Massachusetts—was ordered to clean up the harbor. Under state law, MWRA provides the funds for construction, owns the sewage-treatment facilities to be built, establishes all bid conditions, decides all contract awards, pays the contractors, and generally supervises the project. Petitioner Kaiser Engineers, Inc., the project manager selected by MWRA, negotiated an agreement with petitioner Building and Construction Trades Council and affiliated organizations (BCTC) that would assure labor stability over the life of the project, and MWRA directed in Specification 13.1 of its solicitation for project bids that each successful bidder must agree to abide by the labor agreement's terms. Respondent organization, which represents nonunion construction industry employers, filed suit against petitioners, seeking, among other things, to enjoin enforcement of Bid Specification 13.1 on the grounds that it is pre-empted under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The District Court denied the organization's motion for a preliminary injunction, but the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that MWRA's intrusion into the bargaining process was pervasive and not the sort of peripheral regulation that would be permissible under San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, and that Bid Specification 13.1 was pre-empted under Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 427 U. S. 132, because MWRA was regulating activities that Congress intended to be unrestricted by governmental power.
Held: The NLRA does not pre-empt enforcement by a state authority, acting as the owner of a construction project, of an otherwise lawful
*Together with No. 91-274, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority et al. v. Associated Builders & Contractors of Massachusetts/Rhode Island, Inc., et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
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