Workers to rally today at University of Iowa construction site

Iowa construction workers plan to renew their calls for more local firms to be hired on a major University of Iowa building project.

Workers are expected to rally Thursday at the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building, where they say non-union employees from states like Texas and Florida are taking too many of the jobs.

The university hired Chicago-based Walsh Construction as general contractor on the six-story building on the university's health sciences campus dedicated to cutting-edge research. Its contract is worth $78 million.

Groups like the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids Building and Construction Trades Council say Walsh has hired too many subcontractors from out-of-state, and they've been trying to build pressure on the firm to hire more of their members. They say Iowa tax dollars should help local workers first.