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:
“It is hard to explain why the President would choose to impose government mandated project labor agreements to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Construction workers are among some of the highest paid workers in the economy, earning ten percent more than the average worker in the U.S. Their pay rates have continued to climb 5.1 percent as labor shortages have made this a workers’ market.
“Government-mandated project labor agreements undermine the collective bargaining process by imposing a separate agreement in a specific region that applies only to a limited number of construction firms and unions. These imposed PLAs undercut the benefits of the collective bargaining agreements that were negotiated in good faith between employers and labor union and will likely prompt many firms to think twice about participating in the bargaining process in the future.
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