ABC Files Lawsuit Against President Biden’s Anti-Competitive Project Labor Agreement Rule for Federal Construction Projects
March 28 2024 - 1:14PM
Associated Builders and Contractors and its Florida First Coast
chapter filed suit today in federal court to stop the Biden
administration’s unlawful scheme to mandate project labor
agreements on construction contracts procured by federal agencies.
ABC’s complaint asserts that President Joe Biden lacks the legal
and constitutional authority to impose a new federal regulation
injuring economy and efficiency in federal contracting and
illegally steering construction contracts to certain unionized
contractors, which employ roughly 10% of the U.S. construction
workforce.
ABC estimates the Biden pro-PLA policy will affect at least 180
federal construction contracts valued at $16 billion across America
on an annual basis, including several federal construction
contracts for projects in Jacksonville and dozens of projects in
Florida and the Southeast.
“ABC seeks a national injunction against President Biden’s
executive overreach, which makes a mockery of federal procurement
laws and rewards powerful special interests with government
construction contracts at the expense of taxpayers and the
principles of fair and open competition in government procurement,”
said Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state
affairs. “ABC has heard from large and small federal
contractors—including firms signatory to union agreements—and
concerned federal agency contracting officers that the Biden
administration’s controversial PLA policy has already stifled
competition and raised costs on federal construction contracts in
Florida and across the country. This policy will continue to do so
absent a successful legal challenge.”
“When mandated by government agencies, PLAs needlessly increase
construction costs by 12% to 20%, reduce opportunities for
qualified large and small contractors and their craft and noncraft
employees, and exacerbate the construction industry’s worker
shortage of more than half a million people by discriminating
against the nearly 90% of the industry workforce that is not
unionized,” said Brubeck. “PLAs discourage competition by forcing
contractors to sign union collective bargaining agreements, which
require them to follow inefficient and cumbersome union work rules,
hire most or all workers from union halls and apprenticeship
programs, accept compulsory union representation on behalf of any
remaining members of its existing workforce and expose them to
union wage theft of up to 34% of their compensation unless they
join a union and vest in union benefits plans.”
ABC and its Florida First Coast chapter filed the lawsuit in the
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in
Jacksonville in response to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory
Council’s Dec. 22, 2023, final rule––and the related Dec. 18,
2023, White House Office of Management and Budget
Memo––implementing President Biden’s Feb. 4, 2022, Executive
Order 14063, which mandates PLAs on federal construction projects
of $35 million or more.
In its legal filing, ABC asserted that the Biden
administration’s PLA rule is beyond the scope of executive
authority and violates the Constitution, the First Amendment and
the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaint also notes that the
rule violates the Federal Property Administrative Services Act, the
Competition in Contracting Act, the National Labor Relations Act,
the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act and the Regulatory
Flexibility Act, among others, by limiting competition and forcing
large and small businesses to sign union agreements as a condition
of winning a federal contract for construction services.
ABC members won 54% of the $205.56 billion in federal contracts
worth $35 million or more during fiscal years 2009-2023 and built
award-winning projects safely, on time and on budget, without
unnecessary government-mandated PLAs.
Learn more at abc.org/bidenplafaqs and the Build America Local
coalition website at BuildAmericaLocal.com.
Erika Walter
Associated Builders and Contractors
(202) 905-2104
ewalter@abc.org