PLAs are legal and benefit and benefit workers, local economy

Ben Rogers

Brent Oleson

Linda Langston

James M. Houser

By Linn County Board of Supervisors

Linn County is 100 percent committed to responsibly rebuilding flood-ravaged buildings with local contractors and local construction workers. Project labor agreements (PLAs) help accomplish this goal by putting local contractors and local construction workers back to work at good wages, keeping dollars in our local economy and being responsible stewards of public projects.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled PLAs are legal. In fact, they are the only proven, legal way to assure local workers are hired with a good wage and fair benefits.

All five Linn County supervisors have voiced our support for the post-flood “Build Local” initiative. Now we are leading the way in building local by making those words a reality by using PLAs.

Linn County's PLAs ensure a local work force, require health insurance be provided for the workers, require project timelines be completed by the contractor, and that no strikes be allowed by the workers during the project.

PLAs can also require certified safety training programs be offered by the contractor and completed by workers. When these and other provisions are put into the contract to construct public buildings, out-of-state contracting firms cannot irresponsibly “low-bid” the project by cutting workers' pay, benefits or safety training to win the lowest bid.

Because of these provisions, the citizens and taxpayers of Linn County are the winners.

Linn County has already awarded three competitively bid projects totaling more than

$35 million, funded largely by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state's I-JOBS program, under the PLA system. The Linn County Community Services Building/Options Building, the Jean Oxley Public Service Center and the Linn County Juvenile Justice Center were awarded to local general contractors. Eighty-five percent of the subcontractors on these projects are local.

Most important, these projects are projected to finish at or near the professional architectural and engineering estimates. We plan to sign contracts for the Linn County jail and courthouse in similar fashion later this year.

Ensuring a local work force, building our projects on time and building them within our budget guidelines are laudable goals that are difficult to argue with.

However, Des Moines special-interest groups who represent national builders argue with our efforts.

These special-interest groups are vociferously anti-union and anti-build local. They haven't demonstrated any clear commitment to flood recovery; they only want to ensure that the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent over the next decade to rebuild

Cedar Rapids ends up in the pockets of their non-local contractor members.

These special-interest groups have threatened lawsuits and legislation to stop Linn County supervisors and Cedar Rapids City Council officials from using PLAs to help our local contractors and workers. They have spread misinformation that PLAs are “union giveaways” or “budget busters.”

The facts do not support their arguments. Our PLAs are good for local taxpayers, local workers and local business. The only thing our PLAs are not good for are special-interest groups who want to protect a system rigged for non-local contractors to make profits from our flood-recovery efforts.

We are focused on the future and have undertaken Linn County's flood recovery and mitigation projects with an eye toward meeting public facility needs for the next 40 to 50 years. This is being accomplished by taking fully into account the difficult economic times faced by our local, state and national economy at relatively minimal cost to Linn County taxpayers.

We are rebuilding. We will do it with local contractors and local workers. We will do it with fiscal discipline. We said “build local” and now we are.

Submitted jointly by the Linn County Board of Supervisors: Lu Barron (D) District 1, lu.barron@linncounty.org; Linda Langston (D), District 2, board chair, linda.lang

ston@linncounty.org; Ben Rogers (D), District 3, vice chair, ben.rogers@linncounty.org; Brent Oleson (R), District 4, brent.oleson@linn

county.org; Jim Houser (D), District 5, james.houser@linncounty.org