A PLA is a collective bargaining agreement with one or more trade unions that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project.
Before any workers are hired on the project, construction unions have bargaining rights to determine the pay and benefits of all employees working on the particular project and to agree to the provisions of the agreement.
In February 2022 President Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating PLA’s on federal construction contracts worth US$35m (£29m) or more.
Republican senators Todd Young (Indiana) and Tim Scott (South Carolina) reintroduced FOCA claiming that it would lower government construction costs by increasing competition and provide opportunities for contractors to bid on government work.
“The legislation would ensure that the federal government cannot mandate project labour agreements on federal projects,” said Young.
FOCA aims “to promote fair competition for federally-funded construction projects by requiring neutrality in the bidding process” as it relates to PLAs. Those in favour of FOCA maintain that it would prevent the federal government from requiring a construction contractor to maintain a union agreement and would also prohibit discrimination against a contractor without a union labour agreement.
Employers’ body the Association of Builders and Contractors (ABC) has called on Congress to “immediately consider and pass the Fair and Open Competition Act in opposition to the Biden administration’s inflationary and anti-competitive policies pushing project labour agreements on taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects,”
ABC vice president of legislative & political affairs, Kristen Swearingen, said: “PLA mandates needlessly increase construction costs by 12% to 20% and discriminate against non-union contractors and workers, who comprise a record high 88.3% of the US private construction industry workforce.”
Her colleague, ABC vice president of regulatory, labour and state affairs Ben Brubeck, added: "PLAs steer contracts to unionised contractors and workers at the expense of the best-quality non-union contractors and workers who want to compete fairly at a price best for taxpayers".
However, Mark Erlich, fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy and a retired executive of the New England Carpenters Union, said that PLAs have many advantages.
"On larger projects, PLAs allow for an uninterrupted access to skilled labour working under standardised and uniform terms and conditions," he said. "I believe their value has been established and most of the objections have been refuted."
Erlich also said that community workforce agreements, are a type of PLA designed to encourage women and workers from ethnic minorities into construction, effectively expand diversity in the industry.
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