The United Auto Workers on Tuesday lost its legal challenge to Metra`s decision awarding a rail car contract to a consortium that included a Japanese partner when a judge ruled there was nothing defective about the way the contract was handled.
In a brief written opinion, Cook County Circuit Judge Edwin Berman said Metra had ”reasonably followed” its rules and regulations when it awarded the $379 million contract last year to the partnership of Morrison Knudsen and Nippon-Sharyo, a Japanese transit car builder.
Local 719 of the UAW as well as two partners that lost the job, Bombardier Corp. and Pullman Technology Inc., had alleged in the suit that the transit agency had violated its own procurement regulations by not fully disclosing how the evaluation factors used to award the contract would be weighted.
The Morrison Knudsen bid was about $7 million less than the Bombardier quote and also called for more local participation. Aside from price, Metra had taken into account such factors as the impact on local jobs and businesses in determining a contractor.
But while the challenge was brought on technical grounds, underscoring the case were weightier issues like trade deficits with Japan and the evaporation of the country`s industrial base.
It also highlighted the issue of whether there was still such a thing as a truly American product. One of the partners in the losing bid, Bombardier, is based in Montreal. The third partner in the deal to build 173 new rail cars for Metra and rehabilitate another 140 was the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors.
Carole Travis, president of Local 719 which represents the Electro-Motive workers, said she was devastated by the ruling but hadn`t decided whether to appeal. Travis had contended that giving the contract to Morrison Knudsen would cost hundreds of UAW workers their jobs.
”What this means is that we are in more trouble,” Travis said Tuesday.
Despite the lawsuit, Metra had signed a contract last month with Morrison Knudsen and the firm had begun renovating a vacant rail car plant in the Pullman neighborhood on the Southeast Side that will be used to build the cars. Officials have contended the contract will create some 300 jobs.
In his ruling, Berman said that while the methodology used by Metra to decide on a contractor may not have been ideal, Bombardier was well aware of the importance of local participation, a fact that Berman said was evident in company memos and testimony by the firm`s vice president.
Metra Executive Director Philip Pagano said he didn`t blame the UAW for trying to protect their workers by bringing the suit, but he blasted Bombardier for participating in the action.
”The (selection) process was known to them,” Pagano said.
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