Local trades council gave up project labor agreement in Cedar Rapids; but hasn’t forgotten Iowa City

IOWA CITY - Local building trades council leaders may have agreed this week with the Cedar Rapids City Council  to set aside a project labor agreement on the city's $75-million Convention Complex project.

But Scott Smith, president of the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Building and Construction Trades Council, promised on Thursday that his members would be watching the Cedar Rapids project to see how many local workers work on the project and how many out-of-state ones do.

The trades council and a majority on the City Council have said a project labor agreement is designed to make sure contractors hire some sizable percentage of local workers.

To prove that they will be watching, trades union members at noon on Thursday rallied at the construction site of the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building at the University of Iowa. The demonstration was to drive home the point that the medical building project is using too many out-of-state workers, which Smith said a project labor agreement is designed to prevent.

"There are several contractors on this site that are bringing their workers from Colorado, Texas and Florida," he said in a written statement on Thursday. "We are concerned about the high unemployment that local construction workers are dealing with, and we would like to see skilled Iowa workers employed on this state taxpayer-funded project."

Upon taking office in January, Gov. Terry Branstad issued Executive Order 69, which prohibits project labor agreements on projects using state funds.

The Cedar Rapids City Council rescinded the project labor agreement on its Convention Complex project this week to get access to its $15-million state I-JOBS grant for the project.

The state of Iowa rescinded project labor agreements on a state medical building being  built in Coralville and on a project at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown to comply with the governor's order.

The trades council has taken the governor to federal court in the matter.

The union position isn't the only one on the issue.

On Thursday, the Associated Builders and Contractors of Iowa issued a news release commending the Cedar Rapids council's decision to abide by Branstad's executive order to set aside the city's project labor agreement on the Convention Complex project.

Such agreements drive up project costs and discriminate against contractors' employees who choose not to belong to unions, the contractors' association said.