Klobuchar, Smith Urge FHWA to Approve Union Labor Agreements for Five St. Louis County Roads

Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith pressed the Federal Highway Administration to resolve a procurement standoff that has put $6.5 million in federal road money at risk across five St. Louis County highway projects.

The senators sent the agency a joint letter April 6, requesting prompt approval for the county to attach Project Labor Agreements to bids on CSAH 21, CSAH 84 (Hobson Lake Road), CSAH 88 (Grant McMahan Boulevard), CSAH 91 (40th Avenue West), and CSAH 98 (Canosia Road). All five carry federal funding that could be delayed or pulled entirely if the dispute is not settled before contractors are expected to bid.

The business math cuts in two directions. PLAs require contractors to hire through union halls and accept union wage scales before submitting bids. Organized labor and county officials have long argued that structure buys predictability, keeping projects on schedule and on budget. Non-union contractors and some federal procurement critics counter that it shrinks the bidder pool and can push final costs higher by locking out firms that might submit lower offers.

St. Louis County has required PLAs on major public works for decades. That policy hit a wall when a recent FHWA review of PLA-related procurement rules created direct friction with federal guidelines, leaving the county with a stark choice: strip PLA language from bid documents to comply with federal direction, or seek a waiver and wait. The senators' letter pushed hard for the second option.

In their joint statement, Klobuchar and Smith wrote that the funds in question "will improve the County's roadways and provide good-paying construction jobs." Their letter asked FHWA to act quickly so the projects are not delayed into another construction season.

If FHWA approves the request, contractors bidding on Hobson Lake Road, Grant McMahan Boulevard, and the other three corridors will proceed under union terms. If the agency refuses, the county faces a harder calculation: rewrite its bid documents and risk a political break with organized labor, or hold the projects and potentially forfeit the $6.5 million.

The FHWA has not publicly responded. For county commissioners and local contractors, the answer arriving from Washington will determine not just who gets those five jobs, but whether St. Louis County's decades-old labor policy survives contact with the current federal funding environment.