'It's A Joke': Eric Burlison Rail Against Biden's Project Labor Agreement Policies

5 months ago

During a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) spoke about the Biden Admin's Project Labor Agreement policies.

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Transcript

00:00I would like to recognize Congressman Burleson for five minutes.

00:04Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for hosting this wonderful, very important committee meeting.

00:12Mr. Brubeck, most construction workers do not belong to the union. I think the statistics

00:18are something in the area of only close to 11 percent are members of a labor union. In

00:26fact, and it's only getting smaller. Fewer and fewer people are choosing to be members

00:32of a labor union. Could you expand on how the requirement will pressure contractors

00:39to reverse course and then unionize, despite the fact that their employees may not want

00:46to be a member of a union?

00:48So typical PLAs say that you have to get most or all of your employees from a union hiring

00:53hall and follow union work rules and pay into union pension and benefit programs. And

00:59so what that does is that forces contractors to be unable to use their existing employees.

01:04Any of their own employees they're able to use, they have to send to the union hiring

01:08hall or through some sort of arrangement where they're allowed to work on. In our industry,

01:14if you want to join a union, you can just go down to the local union hiring hall and

01:18join. The barriers to unionization are very low. What we have here is the government forcing

01:23this on contractors in order to get taxpayer-funded construction contracts. And that's a problem.

01:29We heard earlier about voluntary PLAs, contractors entering into them voluntarily without undue

01:35course of pressure. But we're talking about government-mandated PLAs. That's the issue

01:39here. That's what this executive order does. That's what all the Biden administration policies

01:43do. They try to force contractors to bargain with unions and sign a union agreement as

01:47a condition of winning a taxpayer-funded construction contract. That increases costs,

01:52that reduces competition, and that reduces the number of workers that are able to bid

01:55on these projects. We have a skilled labor shortage of half a million people.

01:59And I'm glad you said that it reduces, that it increases costs and it reduces competition.

02:06I can't see how anyone with a straight face can say that requiring this, requiring a project

02:14labor agreement, is somehow going to reduce costs and give more options.

02:19Well, in theory, it might reduce costs when your only option is a unionized contractor base. But

02:27that's not the case anywhere in this country. There's plenty of competition from nonunion

02:30contractors. In my experience, PLAs are voluntarily entered into by contractors without

02:36government coercion because it provides them some sort of exemptions from problematic terms

02:42and collective bargaining agreements that make them less efficient and more expensive. So we're

02:46talking about government-mandated PLAs, not voluntary PLAs.

02:49Let's also talk about the exemptions, the supposed exemptions to the PLA requirements. The OMB memo

02:59implementing the new rule mentions a process for federal agencies to follow in order to secure an

03:05exemption or exception to the Biden administration's new blanket PLA policy. Are you aware of any

03:13federal agencies who have successfully sought an exemption or an exception?

03:18No, sir, I'm not.

03:21There's no reports. In fact, and I think you have from your own personal observation, but yet

03:27when you go and also when you go to the federal government's own website, it does not list any

03:33agencies receiving an exception. So it's clearly the exception policy is a joke. Would it be safe to say

03:44that the new rule is reducing competition, that it's reducing the number of applicants for these jobs?

03:51Yeah, absolutely. I hear both from contracting officers in federal agencies and our own members who say

03:56they want to pursue these contracts, but they can't because of the PLA requirement on there. I'm aware of a

04:01number of projects where they've already had a reduction in bidders who are pre-qualified for

04:05phase one of the solicitation, and they dropped out the minute the PLA was added during phase two of

04:10the solicitation. So there's going to be real-world examples coming out, and projects are going to have

04:14to be rebid, and that's going to delay more construction projects that we all need.

04:20I also think there's another aspect to it. You know, just this week, in a hearing, we learned that the United

04:25Auto Workers Union was protesting on a college campus to make sure that they had the rights

04:33to be basically anti-Semitic in their protests. I can't imagine how someone who just wants to work,

04:41just wants to be employed, is now going to have to pay dues to something that's

04:48getting politically involved in something they may totally disagree with.

04:52Yeah, that's certainly one of the reasons why a lot of construction workers and contractors

04:56decide not to affiliate with unions, and that's their choice. They want to make sure that they

05:00can deliver projects on time and on budget. And before my time expires, I just want to ask,

05:04what can Congress do? I know that we have Resolution 132 sponsored by the Higgins from

05:11Louisiana. What bills are on your radar that would help remedy this?

05:17The Chairman Comer has got an excellent bill called the Fair and Open Competition Act that

05:22restricts government-mandated PLAs on federal and federally-assisted projects, and Congressman

05:26Higgins has a CRA resolution striking down the Biden administration policy.

05:30Thank you. All right. I would like to recognize Mr. Gosar for five minutes.

05:37Thank you, Madam Chair. Since January 2021, the Biden administration has implemented

'It's A Joke': Eric Burlison Rail Against Biden's Project Labor Agreement Policies

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