Vander Plaats at Madison County GOP Event: Republican Lawmakers ‘Defending Small Businesses, Working Families’ in Prevailing Wage Fight

 

WINTERSET – Average Iowans never expected nor wanted state lawmakers or Gov. Chet Culver to push a union agenda that includes prevailing wage legislation and other efforts to undermine the foundation of Iowa’s right-to-work environment that benefits working families and small businesses, gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats said Saturday night.

 

“It’s almost become a cliché to say it, but elections do matter and this week’s prevailing wage debate proves it,” Vander Plaats said.  “I don’t believe average Iowans expected a Democrat-controlled state government to cram a union-written agenda down their throats – but they shouldn’t be surprised. The Democratic leadership talks a lot about working families but every time they’re able to grab the levers of power it becomes clear in a hurry that they’re really all about expanding organized labor’s control over workers and businesses.”

 

He added, “Their stated goal is to force people who don’t belong to unions to pay union dues. They want to set the cost of public projects by union wage levels instead of competitive bidding.  That’s what the prevailing wage is all about. It’s a guarantee that your property taxes will go up because cities, counties, school boards and state government will be forced to pay more for every construction project,” Vander Plaats said. “Our Republican legislators have been fighting that and I give my word to you that as your governor I will veto prevailing wage legislation.”

 

Vander Plaats singled out several GOP lawmakers for additional praise, including his state committee chair, five-term state Rep. Jodi Tymeson of Winterset.

 

“Jodi introduced an amendment that would have changed the title of the bill so Iowans know exactly what it is.  The title would have become the ‘Price Fixing for Public Improvements Act.’  As you can imagine, the majority Democrats voted that one down,” Vander Plaats said.  “On a more serious note, she also offered an amendment to state in the bill that it was not to be construed as promoting or approving price fixing of labor rates on public projects.  But the Democrats weren’t really in the mood to accept even serious amendments by our legislators.”

 

He also noted that state Rep. Ralph Watts, R-Adel, proposed an amendment to protect local taxpayers from higher property taxes that result from inflated public improvement costs due to fringe benefits and state Rep. Lance Horbach, R-Tama, introduced an amendment making it a violation of the prevailing wage act to intimidate, threaten or interfere with the work of any person who is not working under a prevailing wage system on a public improvement.

 

“These were common-sense protections for working families and taxpayers and the Democrats shot them down,” Vander Plaats said. “Our Republican legislators are standing up for us. Let’s make sure we’re standing up for them and giving them all the support they need so they can continue to fight for us.”

 

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