Dive Brief:
- One day after President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, Associated Builders and Contractors endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump.
- In a letter to the Trump campaign, ABC President and CEO Mike Bellaman and Buddy Henley, chair of the organization’s board and owner of Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Henley Construction Co., lambasted the Biden administration’s actions as bad for businesses, while praising Trump’s policies during his time in office.
- “In contrast, your support for fair and open competition, job creation, small businesses and expanded workforce development initiatives during your first term in office helped ABC members grow their businesses, upskill their workforce and create career-enhancing jobs,” wrote Bellaman and Henley.
Dive Insight:
In 2021, Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, earmarking $1.2 trillion to be spent over five years on rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure, which has led to a boom in the sector.
When Trump was in the White House, he failed to get an infrastructure plan passed. But ABC supported his plan and “would welcome the chance to support a similar plan again,” Kristen Swearingen, ABC vice president of legislative and political affairs, told Construction Dive.
ABC’s endorsement doesn’t mention the IIJA, rather the organization’s qualms with the strings attached to it, such as mandating project labor agreements on federal and federally assisted projects. The group claims that the policy locks out non-union workers and businesses from working on major projects funded by the federal government.
“The needless exclusion of qualified small and diverse businesses — and their hardworking employees — from building taxpayer-funded construction projects because they are not affiliated with unions must come to an end,” wrote Bellaman and Henley. “If America is serious about building quality infrastructure with both union and nonunion craft professionals and contractors, this change is necessary, regardless of who the Democratic party nominates for president.”
Workers who are not union members can, in fact, still find work on projects with PLAs without joining a union, though they may have to pay fees associated with costs of the union representing workers on that project. Non-union builders, too, can win work on PLA projects, although they’d have to agree to a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement.
The ABC also supported Trump in 2020, similarly citing his support for open competition and activity such as opposing legislation including the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
In April, the North America’s Building Trades Unions endorsed Biden in one of their earliest-ever announcements of support. Sean McGarvey, NABTU president, praised Biden’s work in passing legislation like the IIJA and his pro-labor policies.
“Not in my lifetime have we had a president prioritize the value of America’s skilled workers and the work that they do,” McGarvey said at the time.
Though Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee on Sunday, the party has yet to officially nominate her.
