Department of Defense halts PLAs on construction projects

February 21, 2025

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Project labor agreements, or PLAs, represent one of the greatest achievements of the unionized construction industry, benefiting taxpayers, contractors, union members AND nonunion workers alike. PLAs have been lifting working families into the middle class for generations — extending union-won, family-sustaining pay and benefits to local communities while bringing complex jobs to completion on time (and saving taxpayers’ money by eliminating labor conflicts and skilled worker shortages).

In other words, project labor agreements create work for SMART members and their neighbors, ensuring the American people’s money is used efficiently on publicly funded projects.

But on February 7, 2025, President Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, instructed the Department of Defense to order its contractors to halt the use of project labor agreements on large-scale construction projects.

The United States Department of Defense contracts out billions of dollars’ worth of construction work each year. In November of 2024 alone, the DOD awarded approximately $2.3 billion worth of design, engineering and construction contracts. Under project labor agreements — used on projects ranging from the construction of the Hoover Dam to NFL stadiums across the country — such large-scale jobs benefit SMART members and workers across our country.

Without them, contractors are free to bid for work without making guarantees around local hire, union-bargained pay and benefits or work stoppages.

“Project Labor Agreements (PLA) projects save taxpayers billions of dollars and can meet a community’s goals for local hire, special outreach to veterans, the formerly incarcerated, and others with barriers to employment,” the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council, which includes SMART Local 206, remarked on Facebook after the announcement. (San Diego County is home to 115,000 active duty military personnel who keep Americans safe.)

“This hurts working people. This hurts our communities.”