Project Labor Agreements

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the Senate to bring up the issue of how the Congress--on a piece of legislation that I am part of--and how President Trump can help the economy through helping small business.

President Biden issued an Executive order in February of 2022. That Executive order required what is called the project labor agreements, or PLAs, on Federal projects over $35 million. Just to be clear, I meant that Executive order requires project labor agreements.

I opposed this Executive order at that time, and I joined a letter with my colleagues, telling President Biden what a bad idea that was. I believe the Trump administration should deregulate this Biden Executive order.

Project labor agreements are a sort of backdoor way to give unionized contractors a leg up on Federal contracts in competition with nonunion contractors. Plus, there is too much redtape for a business to comply.

Public project labor agreements effectively make it impossible for a contractor to compete for Federal contracts if its workforce isn't unionized. So it is kind of like a union shop outlawed by the Taft- Hartley Act in right-to-work States. About 27 States have right-to-work laws.

Well, most of the workforce in Iowa isn't unionized. This Executive order seems to assume that every workforce should be unionized, and Iowa happens to be a right-to-work State.

It happens that I support the right of workers to organize. I joined a union from 1962 to 1971. I was a member of the International Association of Machinists. I am proud of my membership in that union and the years I spent on the assembly line at Waterloo Register in Cedar Falls, IA. It happens that my job was putting screw holes in furnace registers. However, I also support the right of workers not to join a union.

Iowa has many companies, small and large, including many family-run enterprises, where they care deeply about their employees. So it is natural that these companies' employees don't feel a need to unionize.

The Federal Government should not tip the scales against these great but small companies and their workers. Federal contracts should be awarded through a fair and competitive bidding process that allows all qualified contractors to compete on a level playing field based on merit, based on experience, quality, and the safety of their workforce.

Project labor agreement mandates prevent many small businesses from competing for Federal projects and may even lead to increased costs for taxpayers.

I told you I was going to talk about legislation that would do the same thing I asked President Biden to do. I am the cosponsor of a bill called the Fair and Open Competition Act prohibiting Federal Agencies from mandating project labor agreements or using PLA preferences on Federal construction contracts.

I am also joining Senator Britt and a number of my colleagues in urging President Trump to revoke the ill-conceived Biden Executive order mandating project labor agreements on Federal projects. The Biden Executive order should be at the top of the list of a ``deregulation'' administration, which this Trump administration is and it proudly speaks so.

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