Alaska Employment Law

The current version of the proposed Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (CSSB 104(Jud)), in section 15 of proposed AS 43.90.130, requires all applicants, “to the extent permitted by law,” to

(A) hire qualified residents from throughout the state for management, engineering, construction, operations, maintenance, and other positions on the proposed project;

(B) contract with businesses located in the state;

(C) establish hiring facilities or use existing hiring facilities in the state; and

(D) use, as far as is practicable, the job centers and associated services operated by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development and an Internet-based labor-exchange system operated by the state.

Section 17 of the bill requires the successful bidder to

commit to negotiate, before construction, a project labor agreement; in this paragraph, “project labor agreement” means a comprehensive collective bargaining agreement between the licensee or its agent and the appropriate labor representatives to ensure expedited construction with labor stability for the project by qualified residents of the state.

The PLA provision was added by the Senate Resources Committee, with the support of the Palin administration. The Alaska Supreme Court upheld a public-sector PLA in Laborers Local 942 v. Lampkin, 956 P.2d 422 (Alaska 1998), when non-union contractors and employees argued the PLA violated the borough’s procurement code and the state Equal Protection clause. State-sponsored residency requirements are more difficult to sustain.