Help ABC in the Fight Against Union Only Project Labor Agreements
ABC National’s Open Competition Committee (OCC) needs your financial support to fight against discriminatory and costly government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) that effectively deny you the right to work on public works projects.
Almost two years ago, President Obama issued Executive Order 13502, which encourages federal agencies to require the use of costly, wasteful and anti-competitive PLAs on federal construction projects costing more than $25 million. Final regulations implementing the executive order took effect in May 2010 and every day ABC National has been tirelessly fighting Big Labor’s underhanded strategy of utilizing government cronyism and corruption to thwart competition and regain lost market share from skilled, qualified merit shop contractors like you.
With the merit shop construction community’s leadership, financial support and political activism, we have been able prevent PLA mandates on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal construction projects through a variety of effective legal, advocacy and grassroots/public relations strategies.
For example:
· Four distinct Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protests filed by ABC members – with support from ABC National – prevented federal PLA mandates on four large-scale federal construction projects in New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Pittsburgh.
· ABC’s effective grassroots campaign prevented a PLA on a Patrick Air Force base project in Florida.
· A robust response from the merit shop contracting community to numerous PLA feasibility surveys issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have prevented these agencies from successfully implementing PLA mandates, to date.
· ABC National staff has made the case before numerous federal agencies that PLAs will not advance economy and efficiency in federal contracting.
Thanks to efforts like these, federal agencies have yet to successfully implement a traditional government-mandated PLA.
However, some federal agencies, like the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), have installed discriminatory procurement policies that encourage federal contractors to submit “voluntary” PLAs by awarding contractors submitting PLA offers extra credit in the best value procurement process. This has led to the award of a handful of lucrative federal contracts to contractors submitting “voluntary” PLAs, which forces merit subcontractors into the false choice of losing work or signing a PLA in order to receive subcontracts on federal PLA projects.
ABC is working with the newly-elected Congress to expose federal PLA mandates and preferences and end government-mandated PLAs on federal and federally-assisted construction projects by passing the Government Neutrality in Contracting Act in the 112th Congress.
In addition, to date, we have prevented the expansion of Section 7 of the Obama executive order onto local, state and private projects receiving federal assistance.
However, we need your financial support to sustain these efforts. Please consider supporting ABC’s fight against discriminatory and costly PLAs by completing this OCC donation form and making a corporate or personal contribution to maintain free and open competition in government contracting in 2010.
If you cannot make a monetary contribution, urge your employees, competitors, customers and colleagues to become engaged in this fight. Whether educating your local, state and federal elected officials or getting involved in ABC’s grassroots action team and political activities, together we can end the PLA kickback scheme.