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Close to 200 contractors and association executives attended the 2016 MCAA/QCA National Issues Conference in Washington, DC, last week to get the latest information on critical industry issues and to share their concerns about those issues with their Senate and House members.

During the three-day conference, over 120 visits took place between MCAA and Quality Construction Alliance (QCA) members and Congressional Representatives and Senators.

A long list of House and Senate representatives made this conference a success, briefing attendees on a wide range of issues affecting MCAA and allied association members’ business concerns.

Issues included:

• A new bill to stem payroll fraud stemming from misclassifying employees as independent contractors from lead Representative Tom MacArthur (R-NJ);
• Federal Infrastructure funding measures by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Representative John Delaney (D-MD);
• Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) addressed energy policy legislation; and
• Representative David McKinley (R-WV) described the formation of the new bipartisan Congressional Building Trades Caucus.

The Conference also focused on recent critical regulatory developments. This part of the program consisted of three expert panel discussions which detailed developments on the Administration’s pending regulations to:

• Require registered apprenticeship programs to file annual written affirmative action plans showing apprentice enrollment of women and minorities and the relation of that utilization rate to the availability of women and minorities in the apprenticeship recruitment area;
• Executive Order 13673, requiring prime contractors and subcontractors competing for federal contracts and subcontracts of $500,000 or more to file legal compliance certifications for pre-award responsibility reviews; and
• Executive Order 13706, requiring federal prime contractors and subcontractors to provide one hour of paid sick/family leave for every 30 hours their employees work directly on or related to (20% or more) a covered federal contract or subcontract.

All of the attendees enjoyed remarks from CNN news commentator and analyst Gloria Borger as she discussed the 2016 political scene.

The program concluded with a strong address by Sean McGarvey, president of the North America Building Trades Unions, on:

• The broad scope of NABTU (formerly BCTD) initiatives with owner/labor/management tripartite market councils;
• Workforce development pre-apprentices outreach efforts to incorporate under-served potential workers into the construction industry;
• Initiatives for economically targeted investments by pension plans to earn high return and support union construction; and
• Ways to focus project owner/financing groups on collaborative efforts with the union-sector delivery system.

President McGarvey made very positive remarks on industry pension reform phase 2 efforts.

Pension and health plan benefits experts Cary Franklin and Aruna Vohra from Horizon Actuarial Services and Malcolm Slee and Josh Shapiro from Groom Law Group discussed a broad scope of tough challenges for attendees’ health and pension plans from the perspectives of either contributing employers or plan trustees.

The 2017 MCAA/QCA National Issues Conference will take place May 2-4, 2017, at the Marriott Georgetown Hotel in Washington, DC. So save the date!

Former Congressman George Miller took charge of the pension reform segment of the program at the 2016 National Issues Conference. He led an expert discussion of the alternate/composite plan proposal that MCAA and the Quality Construction Alliance are hoping to see adopted by Congress this year.

Mr. Miller and Randy DeFrehn of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP), along with Preston Rutledge, Senior Tax and Benefits Counsel for the Senate Committee on Finance, explained the many cross-currents on a variety of pension reform issues confronting Congress this year, including the need to shore up funding for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and recent developments affecting other union pension and health plans.

Former Congressman Miller summarized all the pension reform issues, based on his many years as the leading labor Democrat in the House, and encouraged the group to engage positively with Congress on this most essential reform for the industry.

MCAA participants reviewed a letter from the UA and MCAA leadership recently submitted to the Senate Finance Committee supporting composite plan reforms.
Download joint UA-MCAA Letter on Pension Reform

The Treasury Department’s Special Master, Kenneth Feinberg, rejected the remedial application of the Teamsters Central States’ pension plan to cut benefits in order to save the plan from even greater cuts due under the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation insolvency status.

Feinberg said the remedial plan actuarial and participant age assumptions were unreasonable, the benefits cuts were not distributed equitably across all participant categories and the explanation of the remedial plan did not meet the “understandability” criteria of the Pension Reform Act.

Reacting to the Treasury Department’s action, the Partnership for Retirement Security (sponsored by MCAA, the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans and other signatory groups), said,

“While today’s decision by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to deny Central States Pension Fund’s rescue plan will temporarily spare many from cuts to their hard-earned benefits in the short-term, it also sentences participants to an insecure retirement where massive benefits cuts are inevitable. By their decision today, Treasury is gambling that Congress, which has flatly refused to assist these plans or the PBGC in the past, will now appropriate more than $100 billion required to rescue, not just Central States, but the entire system. It is a big bet. Unfortunately, rather than those who made the decision, it will be the pensioners who pay the price if it is lost.”

The NCCMP alternate plan design proposal – composite plans – which is designed to avoid the Central States type problem, will be at the top of the agenda for the Quality Construction Alliance National Issues Conference, which takes place in Washington, D.C. May 10-12.

MCAA members met with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) on pension reform on April 21, pressing for positive action by Congress that would allow plan trustees the option to consider adopting new pension plan designs, if appropriate for their area.

Meeting with Chairman Brady in Washington, DC, were MCAA members Barry Moore, President of Brandt Engineering (Dallas, TX), Jim Letsos, President/CEO of Letsos Company (Houston, TX), and MCA of Texas Executive Director Glenn Rex. They outlined the ways that the Solutions Not Bailouts legislative proposal would allow plan trustees to consider new options for multiemployer defined benefit plans that would reinvigorate the plan and workforce demographics, and improve long-term sustainability and MCAA member competitiveness and market share.

The new plan design proposal was pulled back from the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Plan Reform Act (MPRA) that passed in December 2014 with a promise for positive action in the next year, which fell short due to leadership changes in the House.

With the House leadership issues settled, MCAA and the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP) are pressing again for Congressional action before this year’s session ends. And, pension reform will lead the agenda for the MCAA/Quality Construction Alliance National Issues Conference (May 10-12, Washington, DC). Former California Representative George Miller will moderate the pension reform panel discussion.