Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. It will be very brief. The Office of General Counsel of the Department of Defense says about the gentleman's amendment: If enacted, the attached provision would prohibit the Department from soliciting bids for FY13-funded construction contracts where, as a mandatory condition of award, the awardee must negotiate a project labor agreement with one or more labor organizations for the term of the resulting construction contract.

Mr. DICKS. That means they can't do it.

Mr. DICKS. That's not what they think. They think that if your language does what I think you----

Mr. DICKS. Well, that's not how they interpret it.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield just briefly on that point?

Mr. DICKS. Just briefly, the President doesn't require that they use a project labor agreement. He just suggests that they might be able to use it. That's pretty neutral.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Tell me who's done project labor agreements?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. DICKS. Let's get back to some facts here. Under the CRS report that was referenced earlier, the National Labor Relations Act, as we know, gives most private sector workers the right to join or form a labor union and to bargain collectively. A project labor agreement is a collective bargaining agreement that applies to a specific construction project and lasts only for the duration of that project. In February 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that encourages Federal Agencies to consider requiring the use of project labor agreements on large-scale construction projects. The EO describes a large-scale project as one where the total cost to the Federal Government is $25 million or more. The order States that Agencies are not required to use project labor agreements. Regulations implementing the executive order went into effect in May 2010. Now, if that isn't neutrality, what is neutrality? I think this is a big to-do about nothing. I mean, this amendment is not necessary. The President didn't mandate anybody to do anything. The Agencies decide if it is in the interests of the government to do this in a particular case. This administration has hardly done any project labor agreements as far as my understanding is, at least with the Department of Defense. Again, I don't quite understand all of this concern, especially when nonunion contractors can be part of the agreement. They can bid, they can be part of the agreement as long as they will abide by the law, but with the prevailing wage agreements or things of that nature.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. DICKS. There is no evidence of that.

Mr. DICKS. That's not what it says. That's not what the President's statement says.

Mr. DICKS. Reclaiming my time, I would just point out that the Department of Defense thinks the gentleman from Arizona's language is prohibitive, that it doesn't give them any leeway, that they must not do a project labor agreement. May I ask the Chair how much time I have remaining.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm), the author of the amendment, if he would like to make any further comments here.

Mr. DICKS. The best and safest thing to do is to defeat the Flake amendment. That's kind of a standard. That's the surest way of protecting the executive order. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. I want to join in supporting this amendment and commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his hard work on this effort. I hope we can adopt this amendment unanimously. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. The Poe amendment states none of the funds made available by this act may be used for a director of a national cemetery who, after the date that is 180 days, whatever date, however he rephrased it. According to the VA, compliance with this provision would be extremely disruptive to the NCA operations by requiring 20 percent of VA national cemetery directors to lose their current jobs for no other reason than that they are not a veteran. That is unfair. The gentleman may have a grievance about one funeral director, but you can't take this out on the rest of these people who are doing a good job. So I would hope that we would defeat this ill-considered amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. As I understand it--will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Is it none of the funds made available by this act may be used to hire a new director of a national cemetery who is not a veteran?

Mr. DICKS. Thank you for clarifying that.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, let me just clear up a couple of things, especially what the gentleman from Texas just had to say. This may be something that will be hard for him to believe, but this is, as I understand it, from the Labor Department. A Davis-Bacon wage usually is not a union wage. The Davis-Bacon prevailing wage is based upon surveys of wages and benefits actually paid to various job classifications of construction workers--an example is iron workers--in the community without regard to union membership. According to the Department of Labor, a whopping 72 percent of the prevailing wage rates issued in 2000 were based upon nonunion wage rates. A union wage prevails only if the DOL survey determines that the local wages are paid to more than 50 percent of the workers in the job classification. So 72 percent of these prevailing wages are nonunion. I'm sure the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from Arizona are thrilled to hear that. Sometimes the facts are revealing. Again, we've defeated this amendment over and over and over again. Mr. Chairman, I urge the House to defeat the Franks amendment this evening, and I yield back the balance of my time.