July 11, 2023

Today, SWACCA and its allies in the Construction Employers of America (CEA) sent a letter to the leadership of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee to express our strong opposition to the “Fair and Open Competition Act” or “FOCA” (H.R. 1209) that is being considered by the Committee in a markup on Wednesday. H.R. 1209 seeks to rescind President Joe Biden’s 2022 SWACCA-supported Executive Order 14063 on federal agencies’ use of project labor agreements (PLAs) on large-scale federal construction projects estimated to cost $35 million or more.

In the letter, SWACCA and CEA highlight that the bill would “upend the structure and stability that project labor agreements provide to large-scale construction projects, facilitate the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, and have the effect of depressing wages for American workers.” The letter also cited a recent study that conclusively documented the benefits of union construction, highlighting that “all-union capital construction projects are 14% more productive than exclusively non-union projects, are overall 4% more cost effective than exclusively non-union projects, and are 40% less likely than exclusively non-union projects to face cost overruns and scheduling delays.”

SWACCA has long opposed consideration of FOCA, sending letters to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in March 2023 opposing the bill, as well as engaging in subsequent lobbying to prevent the measure from becoming law this Congress.

The full letter is available here.

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