AGC's chief economist Ken Simonson was quoted today in USA Today and CNN.com regarding the effect of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's construction funding.

The USA Today article explains how stimulus-funded construction projects are coming in at lower than estimated costs, which is allowing states to fund additional projects.  CNN.com details how the highway portion of the stimulus plan is just a down-payment on the nation's broader transportation funding needs.

Ray Crase, safety director for Wieland Daveco, a member of AGC's Shreveport Chapter, demonstrates fall protection gear for local media during Tuesday's event.

AGC announced the results of a new analysis that found construction safety incidents dropped 38 percent over the last ten years and the construction fatality rate declined 47 percent since 1998, the year the federal government switched to a safety oversight approach known as "collaborative safety."

During a news conference today co-hosted with the its Shreveport Chapter, AGC released the findings and called for continued use of the collaborative safety approach.  AGC also announced a new federally-supported safety program for Shreveport-area construction projects. The new collaborative safety program commits the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration and local contractors to provide additional training, data analysis and support needed to improve safety for the next three years.

Read the news release here.

The news was widely covered by the media, including the Shreveport Times, Phoenix Business Journal and Nashville Business Journal.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.

In response to new federal employment data released Friday, AGC called for federal and state officials to move faster in allocating the estimated $135 billion in stimulus-funded construction programs.  AGC's analysis of the data found that 47 states saw declines in construction employment, while only two states saw increases and one saw no change in construction employment between July 2008 and July 2009.

Read AGC's statement here.

The news was reported in a number of publications, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, The Business Journal (California) and Dayton Business Journal.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has announced the location of five additional prevailing wage conferences, following its inaugural conference, which drew more than 400 participants to Washington, DC.  Each conference will be offered free of charge to employers.

Two of the five conferences will be held in August 2009.  Chicago, IL, will host the conference August 18-20, and Orlando, FL, will host the conference August 25-27, 2009.  The remaining three conferences will be held in September in San Antonio, TX, Long Beach, CA, and Boston, MA, respectively.

Each two-and-a-half day seminar will address prevailing wage issues as they relate to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), and will cover such topics as:

• The Davis-Bacon Act and McNamara O'Hara Service Contract Act;
• The process of obtaining wage determinations and adding classifications;
• Compliance assistance and enforcement processes;
• The process of appealing wage rates, coverage, and compliance determinations; and
• Contractor and agency requirements under Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.

To register, participants should email all contact information along with their AGC affiliation to whdarra@dol.gov.

Additional WHD information related to ARRA can be found on the WHD Web site.  Other resources, such as AGC's Davis-Bacon Manual on Labor Standards for Federal and Federally Assisted Construction, can be found on AGC's Labor and HR Topical Resources Web page.

For more information, contact Tamika Carter at (703) 837-5382 or cartert@agc.org.

On July 14, 2009, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council issued a notice of proposed rulemaking implementing President Obama's Executive Order 13502, which creates new FAR contract clauses to be included in Federal contracts should an agency choose to require a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on a particular Federal construction project. AGC submitted comments last week.

In short, the proposed rule (FAR Case 2009-005) would:

• Provide a new FAR Subpart 22.5, Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects;
• Add a new provision at 52.222-XX, Notice of Requirement for Project Labor Agreement, to be included in solicitations where the agency has exercised its discretion to require a project labor agreement as prescribed at FAR 22.505(a);
• Add a new clause 52.222-YY, Project Labor Agreement, to be included in contracts in accordance with FAR 22.505(b).

The proposed rule seems to implement the executive order carefully, without expansion, by encouraging (not requiring) agencies to consider (not necessarily adopt) a PLA requirement on large-scale construction projects (defined as projects with a total cost to the federal government of $25 million or more) on a project-by-project basis where certain criteria are met. It expressly leaves to the contracting agency discretion to decide whether or not to require a PLA.

AGC is encouraging agencies to exercise this discretion prudently, leaving the decision of whether to perform the work under a collective bargaining agreement up to the contractor-employers and their employees, as provided under federal labor law. AGC believes that it is inappropriate for public agencies to use their contracting authority to interfere with labor relations among private employers and employees, and explained that position to White House and other officials at a recent meeting about PLAs.

The proposed rule includes standards for all PLAs issued under the rule. These include that the PLA must "allow all contractors and subcontractors to compete for contracts and subcontracts without regard to whether they are otherwise parties to collective bargaining agreements." AGC intends to point out in its comments how this ostensibly fair principle is unrealistic, considering the very burdensome changes that a public PLA typically imposes on open shop contractors operations.

For more information, contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org.

The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) published a Request for Proposals (RFP) to conduct research and create a course plan for a comprehensive lean construction curriculum for the commercial construction community.

Lean construction, an adaptation of lean manufacturing principles and practices from the beginning to end of the design and construction process, is a culture and a process focused on creating the greatest amount of value for a construction project through a reduction in waste of materials, time and effort. AGC seeks to address challenges the construction industry faces in the adoption of lean construction processes, and provide a commonly accessible and sustained educational effort. For this project, research of literature, interviews of industry stakeholders, a plan for a compressive curriculum, assessment of learning outcomes, development of a credentialing plan and strategy for instructor training is requested of those submitting proposals.

Proposals are due September 15, 2009 by 5:00 PM EST. The AGC Lean Construction Advisory Group, consisting of members and chapter staff, will evaluate all submissions and select a proposal to be awarded on October 5, 2009.

Inquiries concerning the RFP should be directed via email including name, phone number and organization name to Amy Fields, Senior Director, Curriculum & Program Development at fieldsa@agc.org.

The White House on July 29 formally unveiled contracting and workforce reforms that are designed to save the taxpayers at least $40 billion a year. The reforms, released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), focuses on three areas: improving acquisition, managing the multi-sector workforce, and contractor performance information.

Previously, President Obama established in a March 4 memorandum his principles for contracting reform, and charged the OMB with identifying the best approaches to accomplish his goals.

The guidance requires agencies to reduce contracts by a minimum of seven percent, with special focus on "high-risk" contracts, such as non-competitive contracts and cost-reimbursement contracts. The guidance also requires agencies for the first time to track contractor performance through a new unified database, the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) located at www.ppirs.gov. The White House reports that Federal agencies will be able to check on a contractor's past performance before signing a new contract with it. OMB will be monitoring their compliance with this requirement and will be publicly release statistics on agency compliance.

The guidance on managing the multi-sector workforce lays out a new framework for managing the workforce that evaluates all the functions an organization performs to assess if an agency has achieved the best combination of public and private labor resources to serve the American people. Agencies will be required to pilot this new framework by examining at least one program, project, or activity where the agency has concerns about over-reliance on contractors.

A second phase of contracting guidance is scheduled to be released in September. This next phase will focus on maximizing competition, choosing appropriate contract types, building the capacity of the federal acquisition workforce, and clarifying when outsourcing is appropriate.

AGC will continue to engage with key Administration decision-makers and contracting leaders on Capitol Hill as these issues further develop.

For more information, please contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org.

BIM 101 discusses how BIM provides contractors with the benefit of improved visualization of a construction project through the use of a 3D virtual model, establishes a base of knowledge of BIM terminology and looks at the benefits of BIM and case studies showing implementation before encouraging participants to study how they could implement BIM.

Join us October 16 in Lexington, Kentucky. Learn more at www.agc.org/BIM101Kentucky.

The AGC Construction Project Manager Course (PMC) Break Out Sessions are the perfect opportunity for the well-rounded project manager with a bright future who has worked his or her way up in project management, but could use a bit of polishing around the edges. Everyone who goes through the program has something to gain, and PMC provides project managers the chance to hone the skills necessary to work more efficiently, increase productivity and propel construction businesses to the next level.

Sessions start in September and run to early October. Attend all six sessions or just the ones you need. Learn more here.

Jointly sponsored by AGC and CFMA, the 13th Annual AGC/CFMA Conference was developed in response to a need for programs and workshops designed specifically for financial professionals in the construction industry. The two-day conference is filled with more than 30 interactive sessions, covering the latest industry issues and their financial implications.

Get the latest information on:

• Strategies for Economic Downturns
• Construction Tax Update
• Ownership Transfer Techniques
• Investing in Today's Volatile Markets
• Risk Management

Learn more here.