Project Labor Agreements in the crosshairs of Trump administration

If unionized workers in the building trades would be asked who would oppose a construction project built on time by skilled workers earning decent wages and benefits without a work stoppage, most would know:

* employers who want to pay lower wages,

* companies who want to get by with fewer benefits,

* contractors without a labor contract, AND

* Big Business interests against unions generally, and specifically resisting the tool that guarantees the positives listed above: Project Labor Agreements (PLAs).

 

A new Trump Executive Order issued on March 14 targets PLAs by rescinding a September Biden Executive order that prioritizes spending for various actions benefiting workers. Biden’s EO sought to provide efficient project delivery by promoting positive labor-management relations through union neutrality in federal infrastructure investment projects and favoring equitable compensation practices and registered apprenticeship programs.

Besides rescinding Biden’s September EO (“Investing in America and Investing in American Workers”), Trump’s edict also revoked Biden’s March 6 order expanding the use of registered apprenticeships, a 2021 order to increase the minimum wage for federal contractors, and the 2023 order “Advancing Workers Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally.”

However, in addition to the labor movement mobilizing to defend PLAs, a new study focusing on Illinois’ use of PLAs provides some solid justification for continuing them.

Authorized under Sections 8(e) and 8(f) of the National Labor Relations Act, a PLA is a contract between a labor union or unions and a government or private entity that needs a construction project done. Before workers are even hired for a project, the two sides negotiate a PLA that sets wages, benefits, working conditions and provisions for resolving labor disputes to prevent work stoppages.

Nationally, PLAs have been used since the 1930s for government and private projects ranging from the Hoover Dam to Disney World, and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993 upheld its constitutionality.

In Illinois, PLAs have been frequently used since 1992 and became the standard in 2003, when then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued an EO requiring a PLA in state construction projects if it “advances the state’s interests of cost, efficiency, quality, safety, timeliness, skilled labor force, labor stability or the state’s policy to advance minority- and women-owned businesses and minority and female employment.”

The General Assembly codified that requirement in 2011 when lawmakers passed the Project Labor Agreements Act.

White House EOs since the ’90s have varied from recommending PLAs to requiring them. But PLAs have been especially under fire in recent months.

Before inauguration, the AFL-CIO voiced concerns that Project 2025, the lengthy scheme coordinated by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation to remake the U.S. government, could upend labor relations in general and in particular policies that unions have found valuable.

“The labor chapter in Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, written by the chief counsel of Trump’s transition team and the head of Trump’s policy team at the Department of Labor, would eliminate public-sector unions, make it illegal for companies to voluntarily recognize unions, let corporations union-bust in secret and take away unions mid-contract, eliminate the Biden–Harris rules requiring Project Labor Agreements and Davis–Bacon prevailing wages on federally funded construction projects,” the labor federation predicted.

Several of those ideas already have been instituted or attempted, with Congress doing little to impede the dramatic changes, and courts slowly addressing actions’ legality.

Then, on Jan. 9, the non-union Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and dozens of allied business interests wrote Donald Trump – before his inauguration – to ask for an EO essentially weakening or eliminating PLAs. Ten days later, Judge Ryan Holte of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of ABC and other contractors that filed a protest against the federal requirement to use PLAs on large federal building projects. His decision relates only to those employers, but it could  encourage other challenges to PLAs.

The near-term effect of Holte’s ruling may not be a death knell, said St. Louis attorney Chris Bailey.

“I suspect with the current administration reversing the Biden executive order, we’re probably going back to what we had pre-Trump’s first term, which was they may be used sparingly,” he told Construction Dive.

Amid the anti-PLA moves, however, a new report focusing on the state of Illinois’ use of PLAs says PLA foes are incorrect in their objections.

Analyzing seven years of Illinois’ Capital Development Board (CDB) statistics, “The Impacts of Project Labor Agreements on Costs, Competition and Contractors in Illinois,” from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois’ Project for Middle Class Renewal, disproves common complaints from anti-PLA interests.

In Illinois, PLAs have increased bid competition, helped lower construction costs for taxpayers, and improved business for firms owned by veterans, women and people of color, say study authors Bob Bruno and Frank Manzo IV.

“The biggest finding in this report, and one that hadn’t been shown as much in other research or was unclear, is that Project Labor Agreements promote robust competition,” said Manzo, an ILEPI economist, who helped analyze 773 public building projects – 499 with PLAs and 274 without PLAs – from 2017 to 2023.

“The PLAs were linked with a 14% increase in the number of bids submitted by contractors seeking to win public building contracts,” Manzo said.

The report shows that, on average, most PLA project budgets come in 6% below initial projections, and PLAs help stabilize public construction costs regardless of a project’s size, complexity or location.

Further, the report clarifies that – unlike assertions by foes of PLAs – the agreements don’t mandate union labor. Instead, PLAs require the general contractor and subcontractors – whether union or not – to provide the same wage, benefits and working condition set in the agreement. In other words, non-union contractors can bid on PLA-covered projects, but they must follow union-scale wages and benefits.

An Illinois labor leader also stressed the importance of PLA workers existing and developing skills set.

“Unions have apprentices and built-in on-the-job training,” said Tim Drea, President of the Illinois Federation of Labor. “With a Project Labor Agreement, contractors can be confident in the training [that] workers receive because it comes from a joint contractor-union program.”

Manzo and Bruno’s report isn’t alone in its assessment of PLAs as a public-interest positive. Other studies for decades have defended PLAs or refuted opponents’ claims. A Harvard University paper in 2002 said that the increased-costs claim often cited by opponents of PLAs is not based on the final costs, but on bids. A Cornell University study concluded that there is no evidence that PLAs discriminate against employers and workers, limit the pool of bidders, or raise construction costs.

Now, however, the difference in the debate is a more sympathetic (anti-union) ear in the corporate-friendly, Trump-dominated Republican Party, and the GOP’s 53-47 majority in the Senate, and its 220-213 majority in the House.

 

The 30-page report can be read at https://illinoisupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ilepi-pmcr-impacts-of-plas-in-illinois-final.pdf