Op-Ed: Michael Bellaman: Taxpayers lose as Trump PLA mandates sideline 90 percent of the construction workforce
On June 12, the Trump administration delivered a shocking and costly setback to taxpayers, the business community and construction workers alike by saying it will continue to enforce a discriminatory and inflationary Biden-era policy mandating project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal construction projects of $35 million or more.
This decision cannot be reconciled with the president’s statements about merit, fairness, and nondiscrimination because it inhibits fair and open competition and prioritizes special interests over taxpayers and workers. It also doubles down on an unfair, wasteful policy that inflates costs and delays critical construction projects, including those important to the defense of our country.
PLAs are project-specific collective bargaining agreements that typically require contractors to hire union workers, follow union work rules and pay into union benefit and pension plans — regardless of whether their employees are union members. For the 90 percent of the U.S. construction workforce that does not affiliate with a union, PLAs are exclusionary by design. They discourage competition, serving as a taxpayer-funded handout to politically connected labor groups.
New data from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2025 study validates what ABC and its members have warned for years: PLA mandates are the most wasteful policy in military construction procurement. The government’s own study found that labor requirements increased military construction costs by 22 percent — the highest cost impact of any procurement policy analyzed — with PLAs contributing 10 percent to 50 percent to total construction costs.
These numbers translate into billions in waste. At a time when infrastructure demand is surging and federal budgets are tightening, failed Biden-era policies that increase costs and reduce capacity should be abandoned — not embraced.
From a business perspective, this policy makes no sense. Eliminating 90 percent of my supply chain, which includes many of my highly qualified contractors, will result in increased costs and eroded shareholder value. In other words, if I ran a publicly traded company and implemented this policy, it would arguably be willful ignorance and a fireable offense. And data backs this up.
From 2009 through 2023, when federal agencies were encouraged, but still had discretion to impose PLA mandates based on market studies, they almost always chose not to do so. In that time, only 12 of 3,222 federal construction contracts over $25 million included PLA requirements. The rest, representing over $237 billion in federal work, were successfully completed without such mandates, proving they are neither necessary nor beneficial. In that timeframe, ABC members won the majority of federal contracts. Now, the Trump administration has chosen to sideline the most experienced, qualified contractors representing 90 percent of the construction workforce that is nonunion in favor of the 10 percent of the construction workforce that is in a union.
The path forward is clear. President Donald Trump should rescind the PLA mandate immediately and ensure America’s infrastructure is built by the best-qualified teams, in a fair and competitive environment and at the best price — union or nonunion. If a contractor wants to voluntarily implement a PLA, they should have the choice — and not be mandated — to do so.
Ultimately, eliminating this mandate is about merit and nondiscrimination because every qualified contractor should have the opportunity to build America.
Michael Bellaman is the president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors.