Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled in favor of North America’s Building Trades Unions and the Baltimore-D.C. Metro Building and Construction Trades Council on May 16, ordering the DOD to set aside PLA-avoidant guidance, even for projects not related to the plaintiffs. Contreras’ order sides with the plaintiffs and says that the DOD must resume the practice of using PLAs. On Feb. 7, the DOD ordered its contracting officers to halt the use of PLAs on “large-scale construction projects,” according to a memo obtained by Construction Dive. That contrasted with a still-on-the-books executive order from Biden’s time in the White House, which mandated use of PLAs on projects receiving $35 million or more in federal funds. Then, on April 9, NABTU and the Baltimore-D.C. Metro Building and Construction Trades Council filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia., claiming the exclusion “interferes with Plaintiffs’ ongoing practice of negotiating such agreements with contractors bidding on federal large-scale construction projects.”
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/dod-resume-plas-court-nabtu-construction/748775/