White House issues prounion report

The long-awaited report from the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment was issued in early February, presenting about 70 recommendations and initiatives to advance the cause of unions, both in the federal workforce and among private-sector employers (https://bit.ly/3p2TE5a).

A significant number of the recommendations are aimed at making the federal government a “model employer,” principally by increasing the number of unionized employees through a vigorous program of education. The same ramping up of private-sector worker education is also a core part of the report.

The main impact of the task force’s recommendations, however, will fall on private-sector employers, especially those working on federally funded construction projects covered by the Davis-Bacon Act. Many of the recommendations expand union access to private-sector employees on federal sites and government involvement in arriving at initial collective bargaining agreements.

Project labor agreements

One of the main task forcerecommendationswas to encourage the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) on appropriate federally funded projects. A PLA works like a “super-collective bargaining agreement” covering all the workers on the project, whether the union is voted for or not.