The Truth About Project Labor Agreements

The FAR Council’s comment period on proposed rules that would implement President Obama’s Feb. 6 Executive Order 13502 relating to federal PLAs closes today at midnight.

The comment period, which had expired Aug. 13, was reopened with a new deadline of Sept. 23, according to a notice published in the Aug. 24 Federal Register (74 Fed. Reg. 42,639).

 

TheTruthaboutPLAs.com previously criticized the FAR Council’s July 14 proposed rule and related OMB memo which promote costly and discriminatory government mandated PLAs on federal construction projects more than $25 million.

Neither Executive Order 13502 nor the proposed rule provides support for the assertion that PLAs promote economy and efficiency in federal procurement.

TheTruthAboutPLAs.com has long argued that PLAs increase construction costs by limiting competition and by imposing inefficient and costly union work rules on contractors that may be passed along to the government.

We urged readers to get involved in the regulatory process and express to the government why PLAs will harm taxpayers, employers, employees and construction users and owners.

TruthAboutPLAs.com readers responded to our call to action  and submitted hundreds of comments to the FAR Council.

TAKE ACTION:
Tell the federal government how government mandated PLAs on federal and federally funded projects will hurt your business and serve as an employment barrier for non-union employees. 

Interested parties can submit comments by mail to General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat (VPR), 1800 F Street, NW, Room 4041, ATTN: Hada Flowers, Washington, D.C. 20405, or by fax at (202) 501-4067.

Comments can also be submitted online at the federal eRulemaking portal (http:// www.regulations.gov) by inputting “FAR Case 2009-005” into the “Keyword” field, although as of today, the federal government has not updated this link to allow interested parties to submit comments electronically (doh!) despite our repeated requests to correct this situation.

  

STAY INFORMED:
Visit www.TheTruthAboutPLAs.com for the most updated news and information. We will be posting ABC National’s comments and excerpted comments from concerned employees and contractors in the coming weeks.