TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress and the President to Oppose Government-Mandated PLAs

Agencies are working on the fourth and fifth versions in play since 2015

The chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, Stephen E. Sandherr, issued the following statement today in response to President Biden’s new executive order seeking to impose project labor agreements on many federal construction projects:

On January 26, AGC of America, along with its Construction Industry Safety Coalition Partners, responded to OSHA on its first regulatory step towards establishing a federal heat standard for indoor and outdoor work, a rule with the potential to have far-reaching impacts on the construction industry. While the proposal issued by OSHA lacked actual, draft regulatory language, and was presented in a series of questions, AGC’s responses took the opportunity to highlight proactive efforts the industry has taken, confusion surrounding existing state standards, and the impracticality of an 80-degree trigger threshold for such a standard from the perspective of the wide array of climates nationwide. AGC will continue to engage with members to better inform the agency as they proceed, which is most likely the case for this initiative.

At the recent AGC conference, one of the concerns that stood out is the design liability faced by construction companies. It is one of the most important risk management issues faced by general contractors today. Design liability concerns are not limited to just design-build projects. It is a hot-button issue for builders because the line between an architect’s responsibility to create sufficient design documents and a builder’s responsibility to execute the means, methods, and techniques is increasingly blurry. Problems arise when owners, design professionals, and builders point fingers, rather than truly collaborate, and communicate. While construction technologies used to assemble complex systems within buildings are increasingly sophisticated, such sophistication is unfortunately not matched with increased information sharing and effective communication.

ConsensusDocs recently presented a webinar entitled “Managing Subcontractor Default, Bankruptcy, and Owner Insolvency in a Recovering Post Covid-19 Construction Economy.” The webinar, moderated by Phil Beck, a partner in the law firm Smith, Currie, and Hancock LLP, highlighted several steps that construction professionals can proactively take to protect themselves and their projects’ success.