Division of labor: Do agreements help local workers?

CEDAR RAPIDS - What matters in the trenches of flood recovery here differs from thoughts in the ivory towers in Des Moines, says Linn County Supervisor Brent Oleson.

Oleson says that's why fellow Republican, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, has it right and fellow Republican, Gov. Terry Branstad, has it wrong about the use of project labor agreements on public works projects.

Oleson says that's why he signed on as a strong advocate of the agreements a year or so ago that he says are working exactly as the Linn County Board of Supervisors intended on its five flood-recovery projects. (see list, 9A)

An opponent of the agreements says there is no proof yet they are accomplishing anything.

Oleson backs his claim with a list of contractors, subcontractors and suppliers that shows some 85 percent of the work on the county projects is being done by workers from Cedar Rapids, elsewhere in Linn County or the area around it.

A year ago, key Republican policymakers in Iowa and representatives from the Master Builders of Iowa and another contractors' group made their case against project labor agreements to the Linn supervisors. They said the agreements, promoted by Democratic-heavy building trades unions, drive up project costs and keep many of the state's non-union contractors from bidding on projects with the agreements in place.

Oleson says he asked those opposed to the agreements to provide an alternative that would assure that local workers making good wages would do most of the work on the county projects. He says he got no response.

“In Des Moines, it's all about political philosophy,” Oleson said last week, a hard hat on his head as he looked over construction at Linn County's new Juvenile Justice Center. “But we actually have to get things done. ... We can't get into standing on a soapbox and being rigidly bound to some philosophy.”

Foe: Verdict out

Scott Norvell, president/CEO of Master Builders of Iowa, says it's much too soon for the Linn supervisors to declare that their project labor agreements are a success.

He says taxpayers will need to know if the projects were completed on time, under budget and with quality workmanship. In any event, the supervisors won't know if the project would have met such benchmarks better without project labor agreements, he says.

Novell says both the construction industry and organized labor for years have taken on a regional character, and he says to try now to construct a “political agreement” with organized labor is to deny “reality,” he says.

Norvell also assures that plenty of local workers would work on Cedar Rapids and Linn County public-works projects without project labor agreements in place because the focus here is to award bids to the lowest responsible responsive bidder.

“That's in the interest of the taxpayer,” he says. “Is it in the interest of organized labor? Probably not. Therein lies the honest discussion.”

Dispute in C.R.

Project labor agreements are in the spotlight as the city of Cedar Rapids and the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Building Trades Council fight it out with Branstad over the project labor agreement in place between the city and trades council on the city's $75.6 million Convention Complex project.

Branstad took office Jan. 14 and immediately issued Executive Order 69, which prohibits using state funds on future public-works construction contracts with project labor agreements.

The Cedar Rapids City Council, which put its Convention Complex project labor agreement in place one month before Branstad took office, did not award the first construction contract on the project until after the governor put the executive order in place.

Now it appears the city or building trades council will have to go to court to try to prevent the Governor's Office from withholding state I-JOBS money from the Convention Complex project.

A 2002 Iowa Supreme Court ruling on project labor agreements requires that both union and non-union workers have access to jobs on a project, and both the Linn County and Cedar Rapids say their agreements incorporate that standard into their agreements.

Generally speaking, the agreements require that workers register at local labor halls and then contractors generally hire at least 50 percent of their workers for the project who are union members.

All five Linn County flood-recovery projects with project labor agreements were well on their way before Branstad issued his order.

In actuality, all five general contractors on the five Linn County building projects are union contractors as are most of the subcontractors, and as a result, most of their workers are union members, says Garth Fagerbakke, the county's construction services manager.

Oleson acknowledges what the Master Builders of Iowa and Branstad say is true: Some non-union contractors from the area have declined to bid for work on the county projects.

But he emphasizes that no contractor was denied the ability to bid on the project, and he and Fagerbakke say some non-union firms have bid.

“We had a flood in a bad economy, and a lot of people said, ‘If you're going to do all this building, how can you put in a provision to use local workers?'”