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Iowa Supreme Court OKs PLA Project

January 6, 2003

A strong opinion by Iowas highest court affirmed the right of public projects to use project labor agreements, even in the right-to-work state.

The 6-1 decision puts to rest a 14-month battle between anti-union builders and the Polk County, Iowa Board of Supervisors, which signed the project labor agreement with the Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council. Now the stalled $217 million Des Moines project, the Iowa Events Center, will commence in the spring.

"Its a good decision," said Des Moines Local 347 Business Manager Gerald Granberg. "Weve had people calling to tell us its hard to fathom how good a decision this is."

Granberg said the ruling is the first of its kind in the United States involving a project labor agreement using public funds in a right-to-work state. "PLAs are almost unheard of in right to work states, especially when they involve public funds."

The Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council, named as an intervenor-appellee in the case, relied on contributions of building trades and crafts unions to defend the PLA. Local 347 alone donated $15,000 to the effort.

The Supreme Court dismissed a litany of arguments by the Master Builders of Iowa, Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Right to Work Foundation, including contentions that the PLA violates the states right-to-work and competitive bidding law, the National Labor Relations Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the equal protection, due process and free association clauses of the state constitution. But in a long and thoughtful decision, the court discussed and discarded each of the arguments.

"We can find no infirmity with the PLA or its adoption by the Polk County Board of Supervisors, or the district courts similar finding," the justices said in the decision. "Iowas right-to-work law bars compulsory unionism, which is not instituted or condoned by the PLA. We conclude that the use of the PLA for the Iowa Events Center is permissible under current Iowa and federal law and the district courts fining of the same should be affirmed."

A 16,000-seat arena and a 100,000-square-foot exhibition center comprise the Des Moines events center. The Wells Fargo Arena is due to open in 2005 and the Hy-Vee Exhibition Hall is scheduled to open in 2004. Polk County won a state grant for the project and also has committed $159 million in bonds to it.

"This is really going to benefit the community, not just the union members," Granberg said, adding that spin-off business will coalesce around the events center, such as hotels restaurants, and a river walk on the Des Moines River.

Granberg said the building trades will use the decision to negotiate other PLAs for other large projects.

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