Dive Brief:
- A construction union group filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Wednesday against two federal agencies and their chiefs for ignoring a still-in-effect executive order from former President Joe Biden requiring project labor agreements on some federal jobs.
- North America’s Building Trades Unions asked the court to enjoin the Department of Defense and the General Services Administration from foregoing PLA use, as the Biden-era order remains on the books.
- Since President Donald Trump took office, he has enacted a flurry of executive orders undoing many Biden-era policies, and in January a judge severely weakened the case for the federal government to use PLAs, but NABTU argues that the original order is still in effect.
Dive Insight:
A Feb. 7 notice from the DOD ordered contracting officers to halt the use of PLAs on large-scale construction projects. Then, on Feb. 12, the GSA issued an internal memo claiming a “class exemption” from Biden’s PLA requirement.
Both the GSA and the DOD told Construction Dive they do not comment on ongoing litigation.
NABTU argues no such exemptions could exist while the executive order remains, and that such policies hurt the members of the organization that benefit from PLAs. In addition to the agencies, the suit names DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian as defendants.
Trump has not repealed Executive Order 14063, the one Biden penned requiring PLAs, despite taking action to discourage the use of them and other collective bargaining agreements. Indeed, one Trump order from March 14 targets PLAs in its guidance for federal rulemaking, but does not revoke the rule itself.
In December 2023, the Biden administration announced the implementation of an executive order requiring PLAS on federal construction jobs of $35 million or more. The move, by the self-proclaimed most pro-labor president in history, was decried by employer groups, and faced lawsuits seeking its repeal.
Then in January 2025, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge found the implementation of the mandate on seven contract procedures in 2024 ignored federal agencies’ own research indicating PLAs would be anti-competitive and relied on “arbitrary and capricious” presidential policy.
Though that case supplied the means for other employers to file similar motions, it only applied to the seven contracts involved in the original complaint.
Associated Builders and Contractors, which had originally sued the Biden administration seeking to remove Executive Order 14063, released a statement Thursday decrying NABTU’s suit.
“ABC supports the Trump administration’s exemption of projects critical to America’s national security from these rules,” said Kristen Swearingen, ABC vice president of government affairs. “We urge the administration to take a step further and fully rescind former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14063 implementing PLA mandates.”
Swearingen said removing the executive order would eliminate the basis for NABTU’s case.
