During his address to the nation, President Joe Biden expressed his support for the Protecting the Right to Organize, saying, “Let’s pass the PRO Act. When a majority of workers want to unionize, they shouldn’t be stopped.” ABC issued a statement criticizing the president’s anti-merit shop agenda three minutes later.

On Feb. 11, the ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace filed an amicus brief before the National Labor Relations Board in The Atlanta Opera, a case dealing with the independent contractor standard.

On Feb. 23, ABC and a coalition of 19 associations and organizations representing the construction industry and business community sent Congress a letter of support for the Fair and Open Competition Act (S. 403/H.R. 1284), sponsored by Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind. and Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C.

ABC recently drafted a letter highlighting its concerns with President Biden’s recently announced Feb.4 Executive Order 14063, which imposes government-mandated project labor agreements on federally funded and federally assisted construction projects of $35 million or more. ABC members are encouraged to sign on to the letter to the Biden administration, which will be sent to the White House in April. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have three first-order impacts on the U.S. construction industry. The first relates to materials prices, which are already sky-high and have induced some project owners to delay project start dates.