During remarks on the Senate floor on Friday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) tore into Project Labor Agreement requirements implemented by the Biden Administration.
00:00The Senate to bring up the issue of how the Congress on a piece of legislation that I'm part of or how President Trump can help the economy through helping small business.
00:18President Biden issued an executive order in February of 2022. That executive order required what's called the Project Labor Agreements, or PLAs, on federal projects over $35 million.
00:41Just to be clear, I meant that that executive order requires Project Labor Agreements.
00:54I opposed this executive order at that time, and I joined a letter with my colleagues telling President Biden what a bad idea that was.
01:05I believe the Trump administration should deregulate this Biden executive order.
01:14Project Labor Agreements are a sort of backdoor way to give unionized contractors a leg up on federal contracts in competition to non-union contractors.
01:30Plus, this is too much red tape for a business to comply.
01:43Public Project Labor Agreements effectively make it impossible for a contractor to compete with federal contracts if its workforce isn't unionized.
01:57So it's kind of like a union shop outlawed by the Taft-Hardley Acts in right-to-work states that about 27 states have right-to-work laws.
02:09Well, most workforce in Iowa isn't unionized.
02:16This executive order seems to assume that every workforce should be unionized,
02:23and Iowa happens to be a right-to-work state.
02:27Now, it happens that I support the right of workers to organize, and I joined a union.
02:36From 1962 to 1971, I was a member of the International Association of Machinists.
02:45I'm proud of my membership in that union and the years I spent on the assembly line at Waterloo Register in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
02:54It happens that my job was putting screw holes in furnace registers.
03:00However, I also support the right of workers not to join a union.
03:07Iowa has many companies, and small and large it happens to be,
03:13including many family-run enterprises, where they care deeply about their employees.
03:22So it's natural that these company employees don't feel a need to unionize.
03:28So, the federal government should not tip the scales against these great but small companies and their workers.
03:39Federal contracts should be awarded through a fair and competitive bidding process that allows all qualified contractors
03:49to compete on a level playing field based on merit, based on experience, quality, and the safety of their workforce.
04:01Project labor agreements mandate prevent many small businesses from competing for federal projects
04:12and may even lead to increased costs for taxpayers.
04:18That's why, now I told you I was going to talk about legislation that would do the same thing I'm asking President Biden to do.
04:27I'm a co-sponsor of a bill called the Fair and Open Competition Act,
04:34prohibiting federal agencies from mandating project labor agreements
04:39or using PLA preferences on federal construction contracts.
04:45I'm also joining Senator Britt and a number of my colleagues in urging President Trump
04:54to revoke the ill-conceived Biden executive order
04:59mandating project labor agreements on federal projects.
05:05The Biden executive order should be at the top of the list
05:11of a deregulation administration, which this Trump administration is,
05:20and it proudly speaks so.
05:23I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of the world.
