Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit set aside a lower court’s decision against a law in Idaho banning government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) on taxpayer-funded construction projects.
• Idaho is one of 23 states to issue "government neutrality in contracting" laws restricting government-mandated PLAs, and one of 20 since President Barack Obama’s 2009 Executive Order 13502 — which encourages federal agencies to mandate the use of PLAs on large federal construction projects and federally assisted state and local government projects.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is the third federal Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the right of a government entity to restrict government-mandated PLAs, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors.

Dive Insight:

Idaho is just the latest battleground in an ongoing, legal tug of war over the use of PLAs on federally-funded projects. PLAs first became a source of major controversy in the 1980s, and, since then, 23 states, including Idaho, have enacted laws that restrict government-mandated PLAs.

Opponents, such as the ABC, claim that PLAs restrict competition and raise costs, particularly because a common requirement of PLAs mandates that contractors and employees must pay into union benefit plans and abide by union work rules. In Idaho, according to the ABC, PLAs discriminate "against the 94.7 percent of Idaho’s construction workforce that does not belong to a labor union."

Those favoring PLAs claim they are a way of controlling costs and quality on the job, and they reject the idea that they place an undue burden on non-union contractors and employees.

While the use of PLAs may still have a stronghold in states with a high union presence like California, New York and New Jersey, it continues to remain a divisive issue in the nation's construction industry.