In a stunningly simple action today, the President overruled the Bush administration's previous orders on PLA's. This action overturned one of Bush's first executive orders, according to AFL-CIO NOW.

Mark H. Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), praised Obama’s action, saying:

The Bush anti-PLA executive order was exactly the type of special interest-driven politics and policy that American voters rejected overwhelmingly last November.

We acknowledge and praise this executive order as being one of the first steps in ushering in a new, more pragmatic and value-conscious approach to governing.

Project labor agreements generally set wages and establish work rules and methods of settling grievances on large multi-contractor construction projects. For more than 70 years before the Bush order, project labor agreements benefited communities, employers and workers by ensuring fair wages and benefits and on-time completion of projects. Ayers says project labor agreements

provide maximum benefit to construction users; union and non-union workers; union and non-union contractors; lenders and insurance companies; and taxpayers. They are frequently negotiated to address a wide range of local and social needs, including the assurance of hiring of local residents, and outreach programs designed to offer local residents the opportunity for a career in the skilled trades.

Yeah, this is a big step back away from the Bush/GOP threshold.
It's also a step toward re-valuing labor, IMNVHO.

The new orders:

* Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
* Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
* Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

After eight years, we are indeed seeing change in Washington.

As if that wasn't sign enough that the new President is serious about the change he intends to bring to our nation, he signed the SCHIP bill today that will cover four million more American children. This, after Congress couldn't quite muster the will to overturn a Bush veto of the same bill just months ago, indicates to me that things are looking up.

Do I think the media and the GOP will ever get on board? Probably not...