This bill forces bidders on any federal contract for assembled motor vehicles to disclose the plant locations where the vehicles will be made, the wage profile and temporary-worker counts at each plant, and records of NLRA and OSHA violations. Contracts must include plant-level information, an explicit neutrality policy toward union organizing, and agency permission before moving assembly to a different plant; awardees must notify affected labor organizations when they request such changes.
The bill also bars federal funds for the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle purchase unless the Postal Service issues a change order to Oshkosh Defense making a contractor’s execution and certification of a bona fide union neutrality agreement material to government payment decisions. The measure links procurement oversight, labor transparency, and the government’s leverage in a single compliance framework that will affect vehicle manufacturers, contracting officers, and unions alike.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill mandates that bids for vehicle-assembly contracts include plant addresses, wage ranges, temporary-employee counts, and records of NLRA and OSHA violations for each plant involved. It requires contracts to carry that information, an explicit neutrality policy, and agency approval before any plant change.
Who It Affects
Motor vehicle assemblers that bid on federal contracts (including awardees and their assembly plants), executive agencies that procure vehicles (including USPS), and labor organizations that represent or seek to organize production employees.
Why It Matters
It shifts procurement paperwork toward labor and safety transparency, gives agencies leverage to influence where and under what labor conditions vehicles are made, and conditions a major USPS purchase on a specific neutrality commitment from Oshkosh Defense.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates an information-first approach to federal vehicle procurement. When a company bids for a contract to supply assembled motor vehicles, the lead procuring agency must require a packet of plant-level disclosures: the mailing address for each plant used in production, a short description of what is produced at each location, the plant’s average, minimum, and maximum hourly wages for hourly employees, the number of temporary or non‑permanent employees, and public records of any National Labor Relations Act or Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations tied to that plant.
Those disclosures travel with the bid and become part of the contract record if the bidder wins.
On the contract side, the bill forces agencies to lock in plant information and to treat changes of production site as an agency-level decision. If an awardee wants to shift assembly to a different plant than the one listed in the contract, it must obtain written permission from the relevant executive agency and supply the same wage, temp‑worker, and violation information for the new plant.
The awardee must also notify any labor organization directly affected by the proposed change on the same day the permission request is submitted. Separately, every covered contract must include an explicit, written neutrality policy from the awardee that affirms neutrality toward employee organizing decisions.The bill defines covered contracts narrowly—those that relate to the assembly of vehicles—and adopts statutory definitions of labor organization and motor vehicle consistent with existing federal law.
It also names the United States Postal Service as an executive agency for these purposes. In a discrete third section aimed at a single procurement, the measure bars federal spending on the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle purchase unless the Postal Service issues a change order to Oshkosh Defense making execution and compliance with a bona fide union neutrality agreement material to government payment decisions under 31 U.S.C. 3729(b)(4) and requiring Oshkosh to certify it will execute and comply with such an agreement covering all production employees.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Bidders must disclose, for every plant where procured vehicles are assembled, mailing address, what is produced there, average/minimum/maximum hourly wages for hourly employees, number of temporary non‑permanent employees, and any NLRA or OSHA violations.
A contractor must obtain written agency permission before moving production to a plant not listed in the contract and must provide the same plant-level wage and violation data for the proposed site.
The bill requires awardees to adopt an explicit neutrality policy toward worker organizing for any motor vehicle plant covered by the contract, making neutrality an express contractual term.
The statute explicitly treats the United States Postal Service as an executive agency under the measure and defines a covered contract as one relating to vehicle assembly.
No federal funds may be expended for the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle purchase unless the Postal Service issues a change order requiring Oshkosh Defense to treat execution and compliance with a bona fide union neutrality agreement as material to government payment decisions and to certify that it will execute and comply with such an agreement.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Gives the Act the public name 'Union Auto Workers Job Protection Act.' This section has no operative effect on compliance or procurement; it simply provides the title that will be used in citations and cross‑references.
Mandatory plant-level disclosures in bids
Requires executive agencies to demand a standardized package of information with any bid for a covered contract: each motor vehicle plant’s mailing address, a description of its output, three wage statistics (average, minimum, maximum) for hourly employees, the count of temporary non‑permanent employees, and a disclosure of NLRA and OSHA violations by the assembly employer at each plant. Practically, agencies will need to add those fields to solicitations and bid-evaluation forms and decide whether the disclosures are a pass/fail compliance item or a factor in award decisions.
Contract entitlements, plant-change approvals, and neutrality obligation
Makes the bid disclosures part of the post-award contract record and requires awardees to get written agency approval before shifting production to a plant not listed in the contract. A request to change plants must include the same wage and violation data for the proposed facility, and agencies must be notified. The section also requires awardees to include an explicit neutrality policy toward employee organizing for any plant covered by the contract and obliges awardees to notify affected labor organizations the same day they request permission to change plants — inserting a notification duty that empowers unions with near-immediate information about production moves.
Key terms: covered contract, executive agency, motor vehicle, and employer
Defines 'covered contract' as one relating to vehicle assembly, adopts the statutory meaning of 'executive agency' (including USPS), and pulls existing federal definitions for 'motor vehicle' and 'labor organization.' It also defines 'motor vehicle assembly employer' and 'motor vehicle plant' for clarity. These definitions set the perimeter of obligations and will drive disputes about scope — for example, whether component suppliers or final-assembly-only plants fall within the rule.
Prohibition on spending tied to Oshkosh and USPS change order
Bars federal funds from being obligated or expended for the Postal Service’s delivery vehicle purchase unless the Postal Service issues a change order to Oshkosh Defense requiring Oshkosh to (1) accept that execution and compliance with a bona fide union neutrality agreement is material to government payment decisions under 31 U.S.C. 3729(b)(4), and (2) certify it will execute and comply with a bona fide neutrality agreement covering all production employees under the contract. This single-procurement provision uses procurement leverage to demand a contractual labor commitment from a named vendor.
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Explore Employment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Production employees at motor vehicle assembly plants — They gain greater transparency about wages, temp staffing levels, and historical labor and safety violations at their plants, and the law's neutrality requirement can reduce employer interference during organizing drives.
- Labor organizations seeking to organize vehicle assembly workers — The same-day notice requirement and plant-level disclosures give unions timely, plant-specific data to target campaigns and assess bargaining leverage.
- Federal contracting officers and agencies — Agencies receive more granular information about where and under what labor conditions contracted vehicles are made, improving oversight and enabling labor‑focused procurement choices.
Who Bears the Cost
- Motor vehicle assemblers and prime contractors (including Oshkosh Defense) — They must collect, certify, and disclose plant-level wage and violation data, adopt explicit neutrality policies, and face limits on the ability to move production without agency approval; compliance and potential bargaining costs may rise.
- Subcontractors and component suppliers — Although the bill targets assembly, primes may face administrative overhead to verify supplier-related plant data and could restrict sourcing flexibility, imposing downstream costs.
- Executive agencies and procurement offices — Agencies must process plant-change requests, evaluate neutrality commitments, verify disclosures, and enforce the spending prohibition tied to a specific contract, increasing administrative burden and oversight costs.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits the government's interest in protecting assembly‑line jobs and enabling union organizing (through transparency and neutrality commitments) against contractors’ need for operational flexibility and the government’s obligation to run efficient, legally defensible procurements; enforcing plant-level disclosures and conditioning a major USPS contract on a neutrality pledge sharpens that trade-off and invites both compliance burdens and legal challenge.
The bill raises practical and legal implementation questions. First, verification: the statute requires disclosure of wage ranges, temporary-worker counts, and NLRA/OSHA violations, but it does not establish an agency mechanism or standard for verifying the accuracy of those submissions.
Agencies will need to decide whether to accept contractor attestations, demand supporting payroll and inspection records, or cross-check public agency databases, each option carrying different resource implications and legal risk. Second, scope ambiguity could trigger disputes: the definitions sweep in 'motor vehicle plants' but do not delineate component manufacturing versus final assembly, nor do they define 'temporary non‑permanent' employees precisely.
Those ambiguities create room for inconsistent agency application and bid protests.
The measure also deliberately leverages procurement power to influence labor relations — most conspicuously by conditioning USPS spending on a change order requiring Oshkosh to certify neutrality and treat such certification as material to payment decisions under the False Claims Act framework (31 U.S.C. 3729(b)(4)). That approach strengthens agency leverage but opens questions about federal authority to demand specific labor-law outcomes in contracts and the risk of legal challenges claiming impermissible direction of union relations or discrimination among bidders.
Finally, the neutrality requirement and plant-change controls trade procurement flexibility for labor protections; in time-sensitive procurements or supply-chain disruptions, those constraints could complicate contract performance or emergency sourcing.
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