Linn County to require union, non-union worker match

Contractors rebuilding Linn County's main administrative office building will be required to match any non-union workers with a like number of union members, county supervisors decided this morning.

Supervisors agreed to adopt a project labor agreement (PLA) including the 1:1 requirement. That's a return to earlier policy after they allowed subcontractors to hire up to six non-union workers per job category on the new juvenile justice center project on Third Street SW.

The board rejected Supervisor Brent Oleson's proposed amendment that would have extended the juvenile center PLA policy. Oleson argued that would have allowed more smaller non-union contractors to bid on the job, but 3rd District Supervisor Ben Rogers was the only one to agree.

But both Oleson and Rogers  joined the other supervisors in a unanimous vote approving the return to the initial PLA.

“We want to keep the work local, the money local,” said Oleson, a Marion Republican  representing District 4. “This (amendment) allows other local contractors to get in and compete.”

Oleson and 5th District Supervisor Jim Houser, a Democrat and union membe accused each other of election-year pandering during the brief debate.

“I think this has more to do, frankly, with election-year politics, partisan politics,” Oleson said.

“You're doing the same thing,” Houser responded, calling Oleson's amendment “a union-busting ploy.”

Oleson said he took “strong, strong, strong exception” to that charge.

Scott Smith, president of Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Building and Construction Trades Council, told the supervisors he's reviewed the bids submitted for the juvenile justice center and found little change from the 1:1 PLA governing construction of the county's new community services building off 12th Street SW.

“I have anecdotal, empirical evidence that it's a great thing,” Oleson said of his proposal. He said  he's talked to both contractors and union officials who supported keeping the justice center PLA as a model.

“I want to make the playing field level,” he said.

District 1 Supervisor Lu Barron said she voted against Oleson's amendment because the office project, to be called the Jean Oxley Public Services Center “is another big project,” unlike the juvenile  justice building.

“We had a smaller project, and we thought that reducing that (union hiring requirement) for that made sense,” she said.

The use of PLAs is new in Linn County, a practice adopted for flood-recovery projects after a Des Moines PLA withstood a challenge that went to the state Supreme Court.

“It's unfortunate that it has taken a certain turn,” said Rogers, a Democrat.  “But at the end of the day we're trying to get local people working on local projects.”