With the federal government seeking to mandate the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) in federal construction, Â鶹ÊÓƵof America needs members’ help in providing information about the impact of PLA mandates on their business. The association is presently asking members to complete the to provide such information.
On February 4, Pres. Biden signed which will require every federal prime contractor and subcontractor to engage in negotiation over or agree to PLAs on federal construction projects valued at $35 million or more. (For more information on the order, see Â鶹ÊÓƵMemo: What Federal Contractors Should Know About the New PLA E.O.) This executive order will repeal and replace Pres. Obama’s Executive Order 13502 – which encourages but does not require PLAs in federal construction – once the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council issues a final regulation under the new order. A final regulation is expected to take many months.
Â鶹ÊÓƵis exploring all avenues – including legal action – to push back against Pres. Biden’s executive order, as underscored in the association’s Feb. 4 statement. Â鶹ÊÓƵneither supports nor opposes contractors’ voluntary use of PLAs on government projects or elsewhere but strongly opposes any government mandate for contractors’ use of PLAs. Â鶹ÊÓƵis committed to free and open competition for publicly funded work and has long maintained that the federal government should not mandate PLAs. Government PLA mandates hurt union contractors and open-shop contractors in various ways, and can impede economy and efficiency in federal procurement. According to an Â鶹ÊÓƵanalysis of data obtained via a -financed lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, the Department of Defense federal construction agencies rejected PLA mandates 99.4 percent of the time even when encouraged to do so under the Obama-Biden Administration.
For more information, contact Jordan Howard at Jordan.Howard@agc.org or (703) 837-5368.