Anti-competitive project labor agreements (PLAs) are special interest schemes that end open, fair and competitive bidding on public works projects. PLAs drive up the cost of construction by reducing competition and effectively excluding merit shop contractors and their skilled employees from building projects paid for by their own tax dollars.
Typical PLAs are pre-hire contracts that require projects be awarded only to contractors and subcontractors that agree to:
- recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on that job
- use the union hiring hall to obtain workers
- obtain apprentices exclusively from union apprenticeship programs
- pay into underfunded and mismanaged union benefit plans
- obey costly, restrictive and inefficient union work rules
In the end, government-mandated PLAs prevent taxpayers from getting the best possible product at the best possible price.
Learn more about why ABC opposes government-mandated PLAs.
Read ABC's Legislative Position on Government-Mandated PLAs
Visit www.thetruthaboutplas.com for the latest news, facts, studies and current information about PLAs.
On February 6, 2009, President Barack Obama issued
Executive Order 13502, which repeals
Executive Order 13202 and encourages federal agencies to require PLAs on federal and federally funded construction projects in excess of $25 million. Executive Order 13202 had prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal financial assistance from requiring wasteful and discriminatory union-only PLAs on federal and federally funded construction projects. Construction contracts subject to union-only PLAs are usually awarded to unionized contractors and their all-union workforces.
On March 13, 2010, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council released the final rule to implement President Obama’s Executive Order 13502. The release of this final rule represents the culmination of a process that began in July 2009 with the FAR Council’s release of a proposed rule to implement the content of Executive Order 13502 into federal procurement regulations.
Even before the release of the final rule to implement Executive Order 13502, the Obama Administration signaled its desire for federal agencies to begin mandating PLAs. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 10 issued a
policy memorandum encouraging federal agencies to consider utilizing PLAs on a project-by-project basis and require PLAs in “appropriate circumstances.” This memorandum came in advance of the
FAR Council’s proposed rule implementing Executive Order 13502.
Between 2001 and 2008, Executive Order 13202 ensured that at least
$147.1 billion worth of federal construction projects was bid without discriminatory and wasteful government-mandated PLAs. The actual value of construction projects protected by Executive Order 13202 is exponentially larger, as the above figure does not include local construction spending that received federal funding or assistance protected by the executive order. Free and open competition saved American taxpayers an estimated 10 percent to 20 percent on federal construction spending and provided women, minorities and other qualified craft professionals the opportunity to work in their communities.
Learn more about President Obama's Executive Order 13502 and the history of PLAs on federal construction projects.
Several states have taken action to either restrict the use of government-mandated project labor agreements on public construction.
States and localities to ban government-mandated PLAs (
List)
Read more on state action to encourage or prohibit PLAs on state construction projects Visit
www.thetruthaboutplas.com for more information on specific efforts to protect fair and open competition at the state and local levels.