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The fight against federal project labor agreements has taken a new dimension with the entry of a new group into the local debate. The National Black Chamber of Commerce, which has no local chapter, has targeted Portland, where one such agreement is being considered.

Project labor agreements set terms between owners and labor groups before construction begins. President Barack Obama signed an executive order in February encouraging their use on federal projects worth more than $25 million, reversing a Bush-administration order banning the agreements on federal projects.

Harry Alford Jr., president of the NBCC, said most minority contractors aren’t affiliated with unions, but the agreements would require them to follow union-set rules to work on the projects.

鈥淚t takes us back,鈥� Alford said. 鈥淲hen President Bush banned PLAs, one of the main reasons he said was that they discriminated against small businesses and minorities. So why are we bringing them back now?鈥�

But Ben Guzman, organizer with the Construction Laborers Union Local 320 in Portland, says project labor agreements can help minority contractors, even nonunion ones. 鈥淎 lot of people have poor notions about unions and think we’re nothing but a bunch of money-sucking whatevers,鈥� Guzman said.

鈥淏ut they believe differently once they’ve tried us out through a project labor agreement.鈥�

In Oregon, contractor James Posey of Workhorse Construction has taken up the NBCC’s fight against the agreements, one of which is being considered for the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building project in Portland. Posey said he’s planning to establish a local chapter of the chamber.

Posey has worked under project labor agreements, sometimes with Guzman. The experience didn’t change Posey’s opinion of unions in general, although he speaks highly of Guzman and the laborers’ efforts to recruit more minority members.

鈥淭he problem has always been that local unions, and national unions on the contracting side, have not involved people of color,鈥� he said.

Posey said he has advocated for unions to graduate more minority journeymen. He probably wouldn’t oppose project labor agreements, he said, if the participating labor groups reflected the overall racial makeup of their communities.

鈥淲e’ve been screaming about this for years,鈥� Posey said. 鈥淎ll that these unions would need to do to shut me up is to get consistent with our population.鈥�

Posey and the National Black Chamber of Commerce provide another voice for an argument against project labor agreements led locally and nationally by the nonunion Associated Builders and Contractors. The ABC participated in a press conference Wednesday to announce the release of a report critical of the agreements published by the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think tank at Suffolk University in Boston.

David Tuerck, executive director of the institute, said that the reasons cited for using project labor agreements are overblown. The study focused on cost overruns, delays and labor disputes on federal projects.

Supporters say the agreements let project owners deliver projects on time, on budget and without work disruptions. The Beacon Hill study, however, found that big federal projects have few such problems.

鈥淭he research showed there were no delays, no cost overruns and no labor disputes over the course of the Bush administration,鈥� when the agreements were banned, Tuerck said. 鈥淲e have concluded in our study that the Obama executive order is an effort to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.鈥�