Project labor agreement

Definition

A union agreement setting the terms for every contractor on one construction job.

Why It Matters

It is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement with one or more building trades unions, written for a single project and binding every contractor and subcontractor engaged in construction on it. Federal procurement rules require one on any federal construction project with an estimated cost of $35 million or more unless an exception applies, and an agency may require one on smaller work. Any contractor may compete whether or not it is otherwise union, but on that job it works under the agreement's terms, including its guarantees against strikes and its dispute procedures. For a buyer of a nonunion subcontractor, ask which past jobs ran under one and what share of the backlog sits on large federal projects.

In numbers: A federal courthouse estimated at $40 million carries one by rule, so a subcontractor bidding the $2,000,000 concrete package works that job under union terms whatever its own status.