Dive Brief:
- Pursuing its agenda of not having contractors settled with wage requirements in government contracts, Associated General Contractors is pressing the Army Corps of Engineers not to make project labor agreements (PLAs) part of general contracts it is planning to award from its district office in Wilmington, N.C.
- The government announced in November that it wanted industry feedback on including the minimum-pay conditions in contracts for projects of $25 million or more under what the Army calls multiple award task order contracts.
- AGC says it does not object to contractors' making agreements to meet prevailing union wages in the area where a project will be carried out if the contractor decides that is the best course to follow, but it insists that it is wrong to mandate that wages be decided that way.
Dive Insight:
As AGC sums up its position, "AGC is committed to free and open competition for publicly funded work, and believes that the lawful labor relations policies and practices of private construction contractors should not be a factor in a government agency’s selection process." Among the factors the Army said it wanted to hear about were how requiring PLAs would affect the time for getting contracts in place and how they would affect contractors' bids.
