Washington Examiner Beltway Confidential columnist Barbara Hollingsworth covered the controversial project labor agreement (PLA) on a federal construction project in Washington, D.C. that has been in the news (GSA Admits Jumping the Gun with PLA Gift to Unions, 12/28).
The General Services Administration admitted it made a mistake when it placed a non-competitive, cost-raising, union-pleasing Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on a federal construction project in Washington before the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council issued its final ruling on President Obama’s executive order, which encourages the use of PLAs on all federal construction projects worth more than $25 million.
The $100 million Lafayette Building Modernization project is currently the only active federal government-mandated PLA.
Here’s a link to the project (See Section H, 12.02 and Section 16 page 24 on Section H for the PLA language).After jumping the gun, GSA is now requiring contractors to submit two proposals – one subject to a PLA requirement and one that is not. The Associated Builders and Contractors criticized this highly unusual two-bid process, saying it puts even more obstacles before the 86 percent of local D.C. contractors, many minority owned, who are non-unionized.
UPDATE: On 2/4, the GSA cancelled this solicitation. Qualified local contractors submitted a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) against the GSA’s dual bidding/PLA requirement. Similar to the outcome of the bid protest issued against the U.S. Department of Labor Job Corps Center in Manchester, N.H., the GSA opted to cancel the solicitation instead of move forward without a PLA.
However, according to the GSA solicitation cancellation notice, “GSA expects to re-issue the Lafayette Building Modernization solicitation in the near future.”
PDF 
