On December 16, for the second time in 2025, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that a requirement to use a project labor agreement (PLA) on a large-scale federal construction project (contract value over $35 million) is anti-competitive and therefore violates the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA). The court further issued a permanent injunction removing the PLA requirement from the challenged solicitation.
The court’s December 16 decision to strike down application of the federal PLA mandate arose in response to AGC-member Brasfield & Gorrie’s (B&G) bid protest in connection with a United States Corps of Engineer’s (USACE) solicitation for a flood-mitigation pump station project in Louisiana. B&G filed its protest in July. Over the next few months, contractors challenged PLA requirements in 22 other large-scale, federal construction solicitations. The government has until January 7, 2026, to advise the court as to how the government will remove the PLA requirements from these other solicitations. As of the drafting of this article, seven of the PLA requirements have already been removed by amendments to the relevant solicitations.
In ruling that a PLA mandate violates CICA, the court admonished the federal government about the anti-competitive procurement process it is attempting to impose on all large-scale, federal construction projects. In particular, the court raised concerns that the government is making no attempt to justify unique labor and market competition circumstances with each specific project to justify imposing the anti-competitive and exclusionary PLA mandates. CICA requires that all responsible contractors be allowed to compete for a federal construction protest unless the government can justify unique circumstances to limit competition for a particular project. It appears unlikely that the government can justify mandating union labor on most, arguably all, large-scale federal construction projects.
The court made clear to the government that if the government continues to follow the Biden-era PLA executive Order and FAR Rule, the court will continue to strike down every PLA inserted into a solicitation. This indicates that any contractor that wants to bid or propose on a large-scale federal construction project can file a bid protest at the Court of Federal Claims to remove a mandatory PLA from that solicitation.
B&G also asked the court to permanently strike-down the Biden Executive Order and FAR Rule. However, for procedural reasons related to the court’s jurisdiction, the court deferred on taking this action and instead encouraged Congress and/or the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether the court has this jurisdictional power.
Editor’s Note: This article was written by guest author Dirk Haire of the law firm Burr & Forman. AGC retained Mr. Haire and his team to develop the ground-breaking strategy successfully used by the contractors in the above-referenced cases. Funding for developing the strategy was made possible by donations to the association’s Construction Advocacy Fund. To learn more about the fund and to make a contribution in support of AGC’s advocacy efforts, visit constructionadvocacyfund.agc.org.