Linn supervisors spar over labor agreement for latest county project

Contract terms for Linn County's latest flood-recovery project are up for debate, and there will be a debate.

“We're going to have a disagreement,” said 4th District Supervisor Brent Oleson. “I don't know how it's going to play out.”

Oleson, a Republican, and 5th District Supervisor Jim Houser, a Democrat, are at odds over terms of the project labor agreement (PLA) that will govern work at the Jean Oxley Public Service Center, the former Administrative Office Building at 930 First St. SW. The matter is on the agenda for supervisors' work session at 9 a.m. Monday at Linn County West at Westdale Mall.

Oleson wants the project to adopt a PLA similar to that for the new juvenile justice center at the 801 Third St. SW. That agreement allows contractors to employ up to six non-union workers in a single job category without matching them with the same number of union members.

That was a change from the PLA for the county's community services building off 12th Street SW, which called for a one-to-one match of union and non-union labor. Houser wants to return to that contract, modeled after a Des Moines agreement that withstood a state Supreme Court test and used elsewhere in the state.

In return for the agreement to pay union wages, the unions adopt a no-strike provision for the project.

“The main emphasis I think the board wants to present on this is, we want to keep the local people employed and put others back to work,” said Houser.

The board agreed to change the juvenile center PLA on Oleson's request. He said small non-union subcontractors, including some of his Marion neighbors, asked him to make it easier for them to bid on the projects.

“It worked out great,” said Oleson. “I've talked to a number of the labior union representatives, and they're fine with it. Jim's a trade-union guy, and I don't think he wants any non-union members (0n the projects).”

Houser, who still holds his sheetmetal worker's card, said he's heard the opposite from union workers. He said he and the other supervisors agreed to Oleson's request only for the juvenile center.

“We didn't have one non-union contactor bid on it,” said Houser. “(Oleson) said if they didn't bid on it we're going back to the original agreement.”

“What Jim's proposing is not in the spirit of why we're doing this,” said Oleson. “We're not doing this to benefit the unions. We were using the PLA to make sure these are good-paying jobs and we're using local contractors.”

Miron Construction won the contract for the $10.8 million community services center. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will provide up to $9.3 million for the project, and the county also will use $5 million in state I-JOBS money.

Lowest bid for the juvenile justice project was from Kleiman Construction, for just over $5.3 million. Supervisors plan to accept the bid June 30, after the 15-day period expires for a petition challenge to their plan to issue bonds to cover the gap between Kleiman's bid and $4 million in I-JOBS funding.

The contract for the Oxley Center should be awarded by late July. Plans call for the flood-damaged building to be gutted and renovated to house offices for the auditor, recorder, supervisors, and other functions. The building will be named for Jean Oxley, the first woman to be elected to Linn County office and the longest-tenured Linn supervisor.