Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, in 2009, the President issued Executive Order 13502, which strongly encourages Federal agencies to require project labor agreements, or PLAs, on Federal construction projects exceeding $25 million in cost. This amendment simply states, as already read, that none of the funds made available by this act may be used to implement or enforce this executive order.

Now, project labor agreements, Mr. Chair, discourage what is called a merit shop contractor from bidding on taxpayer-funded construction contracts. Let me be clear. That means, if you don't have a union, you can't even bid.

By the way, the vast majority of all work conducted in the United States, private or government, is conducted by nonunion contractors. It is not meant to disparage unions. It is just saying that there should be open competition for everybody.

Because it is a limited competition, it actually drives up the cost that each of us pay for the construction, somewhere between 12 and 18 percent, needlessly. Even if it is only 12 percent, why pay it? It results in fewer infrastructure improvements simply because there is just not as much money because we are paying more for the ones that we are doing.

It is a project-specific collective bargaining agreement with multiple unions that is unique only to the construction industry. It is done nowhere else, only in the construction industry.

Now, the NLRA permits construction employees to execute a PLA, a project labor agreement, voluntarily. When the PLA is mandated by a government agency, construction contracts can be awarded only to contracts and subcontractors that agree to the terms and conditions of the PLA, essentially making them a union organization.

Typically, the contractors have to recognize the union as the representative of their employees. No longer is the private business the representative, but only the union is the representative, and they have to hire from the union hall.

Furthermore, if you ever pay prevailing wage or the Federal minimum wage for these kinds of projects, there is a thing called the fringe benefits, which includes your medical, your dental, your retirement. Those all will be put into union-managed benefits and pension programs. So even if you are a private employer that is not unionized, all that money, all those fringe benefits go to those programs.

You must obey the restrictive and sometimes inefficient rules of job classification. So, for instance, if you are an electrician, you might want to wire something up, but if you need some conduit, you can't go get it because you are not a laborer. You are an electrician, and you have to wait for the laborer to go get it. That doesn't happen in nonunion environments. It is just inefficient.

Furthermore, PLAs force employees to pay union dues, whether they are in the union or not, and then accept unwanted union representation. They also forfeit the benefits earned during the life of the project unless they join the union and become vested in union benefit plans. So they lose all that.

Quite honestly, it is just simply a union recruiting plan at taxpayer expense. I don't have problems with the union; I just don't think that we should be paying for them.

The PLA requirements and preferences on taxpayer-funded contracts expose procurement officials to intense political pressure because they are not negotiating normally. It is negotiated under the terms of the project labor agreement, not just a regular contract where you agree to do so much work and we would agree to pay so much. You agree to do it at this time, and we agree to accept that timeframe. It disrupts local collective bargaining agreements already in place because it is contract specific for the project at the time. Obviously, because of that, it stifles competition.

You stifle competition, it raises the cost. Who is paying the extra cost? The American taxpayer. It creates, or potentially creates, contracting and construction delays. We don't need any more delays at the VA. I think we have been through that plenty of times.

Now, we just want to get the best price. We want everybody involved. We want everybody able to bid and able to participate. Let the government, let the taxpayer get the best job for the best price.

Under this amendment, PLAs for military construction would not be forbidden. They are still not forbidden; they are just not mandated. Again, this amendment simply allows none of the funds made by the executive order to be used to implement or enforce Executive Order 13502.

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate that this does not take this tool out of the toolbox. It just doesn't require it. With all due respect to those who say, well, it stops strikes from happening and it makes sure it is on time and on budget, a simple contract that millions of Americans sign every single day without a project labor agreement does that already.

If project labor agreements are necessary, why aren't we all doing it with the work on our homes or the work on our businesses? The fact is it is not done everywhere because it is not necessary. The fact is it discourages participation, because you can participate if you want to join the union, or at least de facto join the union because you are going to do everything by the union code, every single thing, all your employees, all your representation.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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