Thank you for the opportunity to be here and to comment on H.F. 2090 and H.F. 2091. The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO represents 120,000 AFL-CIO union members in Iowa and on their behalf I urge you to oppose this legislation.

Vision Iowa promised Iowans two things—the promise to build quality projects and a promise to create good jobs.

The PLA crafted by the Central Iowa Building Trades Council and Polk County was negotiated in the spirit of these promises.

The PLA will offer an efficient and cost-saving method of performing construction. It will guarantee access to a pool of skilled construction workers; it will coordinate and harmonize the construction worksite. It will ensure that local, Iowa skilled labor is employed on the Events Center project. It provides some assurance that out of state contractors won’t undermine the local economy by staffing this publicly funded construction project with out of state workers who are willing to work for substandard wages and little or no benefits.

In sum, the PLA that has been negotiated will guarantee a quality project built by workers that will earn good wages and get good benefits.

There are people who would turn Vision Iowa projects into a nightmare. They are apparently motivated by three simple goals—to deny workers a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, to deny the public sector the ability to avail itself of the same efficiencies of a PLA that private industry in Iowa and elsewhere has long enjoyed, and to create political advantage.

Proponents of the legislation, including the ABI, the Associated General Contractors, the Master Builders, the Motor Truck Association and the Associated Builders and Contractors, use twisted and tortured logic to make fictitious claims about violations of the so-called right to work law and the competitive bidding statute. They ought to cut the nonsense and just say they want cheap labor.

Again, I urge you to oppose the legislation.