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�鶹��ý of America’s Union Contractors Committee will meet during the association’s 2022 Annual Convention on Wednesday, March 30, at 1:00 p.m. in the Gaylord Texan’s Grapevine 5-6 rooms. All union contractors and chapter staff registered for the Convention are encouraged to attend.

�鶹��ý of America is releasing a series of new coronavirus public service ads that feature Spanish-speaking construction workers urging their colleagues to get vaccinated for COVID. Each of the workers featured in the ads was unvaccinated and had a near-death experience with the coronavirus. They want their colleagues to avoid making the same mistake and in the videos urge other workers to get their shot. You can find the ads here and here. The ads all direct viewers to �鶹��ý of America’s Coronavirus Vaccine toolkit which now includes a feature to translate all the site’s content into Spanish.

In a favorable decision issued March 11, the TN Court of Appeals agreed with �鶹��ý of America and �鶹��ý of Tennessee that a subcontractor cannot sue a general contractor on one and the same set of facts for not only breach of contract (seeking to recover its purely economic losses) but also in tort for misrepresentation (seeking compensatory and punitive damages). The court of appeals ruled that the subcontractor’s ability to recover monetary damages was limited by its contract with the general contractor. As such, the court vacated the lower court’s award of punitive damages because they were not permitted under the contract.

Prices of construction materials used in new nonresidential construction jumped more than 21 percent from February 2021 to February 2022, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of government data released today. The association noted that more recent price announcements made after the February data was collected suggest contractors are experiencing even worse cost pressures this Spring.

ConsensusDocs recently presented a webinar entitled “Contract Killer Clauses and How to Negotiate Out of the Them.” Rather than the party that is in the best position to manage and mitigate risk, construction contracts often shove risk down the throat of the weakest party in the contractual negotiation chain. This is not effective risk management. Studies indicate that contract amount may increase up to 20% to account for just the top five most abused construction contract provisions.

On Feb. 17, the newly revised 2022 construction general permit (CGP) for stormwater discharges from construction activities took effect. The CGP applies to operators of construction sites in a few areas where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permitting authority. More importantly, NPDES authorized states that oversee their own stormwater permitting programs use it as a model for their permits. �鶹��ý supports the use of general permits as an effective tool to streamline the permit process and reduce administrative burdens for those projects with minimal impact. (Individual permits are available for larger-scale impacts.) �鶹��ý engaged in significant outreach with the agency to discuss ways to improve the permit. And although the permit has new requirements that can add cost for permittees, such as turbidity “benchmark” monitoring for dewatering discharges to sensitive waters, the agency sought to provide clarity on several points where �鶹��ý members have demonstrated to them confusion with the previous permit.

Over the past two months, �鶹��ý of America, working with a coalition of other industry stakeholders, has worked with Congress to pass an extension of the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) through the fourth quarter of 2021. The ERTC was originally extended to run through the end of 2021 but was retroactively repealed for the fourth quarter after passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), to expire after September 30. Because of the delay in passing IIJA some construction firms already claiming the credit in October 2021 face a potential tax penalty when they file their 2021 tax returns as a result.