Press Releases

WASHINGTON – Today, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) sent a letter to Department of Commerce (DOC) Secretary Gina Raimondo to express strong disapproval of a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the CHIPS Incentive Program, which strongly encourages companies seeking CHIPS funding to use project labor agreements (PLAs) in connection with their construction projects. The lawmakers point out that this PLA-preference policy established by the NOFO blatantly disregards congressional intent, rewards Democrat special interests, disadvantages non-union construction workers, and hurts taxpayers.
 
In the letter, Reps. Foxx and Good write: “PLAs typically force contractors to recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on that job, use the union hiring hall to obtain workers, exclusively hire apprentices from union programs, follow union work rules, and pay into union benefit and multiemployer pension plans. Pre-hire agreements also undermine employee free choice because they deprive workers of a vote on union representation. In effect the government puts its thumb on the scale and discourages non-union contractors and their employees from working on projects when it adopts a PLA preference policy.”
 
Reps. Foxx and Good continue: “We strongly oppose the Department pandering to special interests and favoring workers based on their union affiliation. Steering taxpayer dollars to organized labor – one of the largest funders of Democrats’ political campaigns – through the semiconductors incentives program, is as shameful as it is unsurprising under this administration. … American taxpayers will shoulder the burden of the Department’s ill-advised PLA policy. … When PLA-mandates are promoted by the federal government in exchange for ‘free’ money to corporations, hardworking taxpayers lose.”
 
Reps. Foxx and Good conclude: “We urge the Department to abandon its PLA-preference policy for which it lacks congressional authorization. This ill-advised policy is unfair to the vast majority of construction workers who chose not to belong to a union, and it will dramatically increase construction costs. Workers and taxpayers deserve better than the Department’s union-first, America-last policies.”
 
Read the full letter here.