On Tuesday, April 13, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued final rules implementing President Obama’s Executive Order 13502, which authorizes the use of project labor agreements in connection with large federal construction projects.  Project labor agreements act as pre-hire collective bargaining agreements with one or more labor organizations and establish the terms and conditions of employment for a specific federally-funded project.  The Executive Order provides federal agencies with the ability to require these agreements on construction projects with a minimum $25 million total cost to the federal government.

 Although the majority of construction firms in the United States are not unionized, the new rules will require construction firms to participate in project labor agreements on select federal construction projects.  For those selected projects, the project labor agreement will be binding on all contractors and subcontractors on the project, prohibit strikes and lockouts, contain binding dispute-resolution procedures, and provide other mechanisms for labor-management cooperation on such subjects as productivity, safety and health matters, and quality of work.

For more information on the specifics of these new rules and what they may mean for the construction industry, please see our Legal Alert here.