Iowa gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has spoke out this week against against Gov. Chet Culver’s Executive Order 22 and his efforts to encourage state agencies to consider and implement wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements (PLAs) on state projects. The Cedar Rapids Gazette asked the former governor about the PLA issue on the campaign trail. [...]
The executive order signed earlier this year by Iowa Gov. Chet Culver is becoming a gubernatorial campaign issue, as Republican challenger Terry Branstad and others critical of project labor agreements (PLAs) make the case that these anti-competitive schemes will hurt Iowa business and taxpayers (“Culver defends project labor agreements for public projects,” The Iowa Independent, [...]
Iowa Governor Chet Culver’s effort to encourage public bodies to require wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements (PLAs) is paying dividends for his Big Labor allies. The Iowa University Board of Regents voted 5-4, along party lines, in favor of requiring a PLA on the construction of the $73 million outpatient clinic for the University [...]
Another embattled governor has reached out for the Big Labor lifeboat. On March 31, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn issued Executive Order 03 of 2010, which reaffirms former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 2003 order essentially requiring wasteful project labor agreements (PLAs) on many state projects, and additionally, authorizes the state to use PLAs on federally assisted projects [...]
In what should be no surprise to anyone, Gov. Chet Culver announced today that the Iowa Department of Administrative Services has been approved to move forward with wasteful and discriminatory project labor agreements (PLAs) on two upcoming projects for the Department of Corrections. Here is the text of Gov. Culver’s release announcing the PLAs: Gov. [...]
An opinion piece by Dan Fagen of the Alaska Standard takes Alaska Governor Sean Parnell to task for not standing up against discriminatory and costly project labor agreements (PLAs) (“Parnell refuses to do the right thing,” 3/15) There are times when something is so obviously wrong and immoral, that when a politician refuses to do something [...]
March 11, 2010 – 12:25 pm
In the latest edition of the Dubuque, IA Telegraph Herald’s “Double Take” feature, supporters and opponents of project labor agreements (PLAs) and Gov. Chet Culver’s Executive Order 22, encouraging state agencies to consider PLAs on state projects, were each given an opportunity to present their views on this issue. Jim Giese of Dubuque, owner of [...]
Jan Mickelson from the Mickelson in the Morning show, Iowa’s most popular daily talk show, discusses Governor Chet Culver’s Executive Order 22, encouraging state agencies to consider project labor agreements (PLAs) on state construction, with Brett McMahon, vice president of Miller & Long, a concrete construction subcontractor, and a member of the Associated Builders and [...]
February 22, 2010 – 9:31 am
In a Feb. 9 guest column in the Des Moines Register, State Representative Ralph Watts offers his thoughts on Governor Chet Culver’s Executive Order 22, which encourages state agencies to consider project labor agreements (PLAs) on state construction, and also some of Big Labor’s other priority issues in Iowa in 2010. On Executive Order 22 [...]
February 16, 2010 – 5:31 pm
There is a textbook example of PLAs being used as political payback to Big Labor from politicians that need union support brewing in Iowa right now. This is a story about America’s most politically endangered incumbent governor and the unrealized dreams of one special interest group – Big Labor. When Democrats took over Iowa’s state [...]
