Vander Plaats: Culver Should Promise to Veto any Assault on Iowa’s Right-to-Work Law

BELMOND – Gov. Chet Culver owes it to Iowa companies, their employees and local economic development groups to say definitively that he will veto any legislation that weakens the state’s right-to-work law, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats said today.

After Culver signed an order on Wednesday requiring state agencies to consider expensive project labor agreements that favor union contractors and workers over their non-union counterparts, he gave a vague answer when asked by reporters if he would attempt to repeal Iowa’s right-to-work law that protects employees from being forced to join unions or pay union dues. “I don’t believe we are going to do that,” Culver said.

“His attempt last year to assault our right-to-work law had a chilling effect on economic development. Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand what Iowa’s employers or workers need any more this year than he did last year,” Vander Plaats said. “No one should interpret Chet Culver’s comments yesterday as an iron-clad promise to protect the 85 percent of companies and workers who are non-union. I call on him to state clearly and unequivocally that he will veto any legislation that weakens our right-to-work law in even the slightest way.”

Vander Plaats said he will “proudly, consistently and constantly market Iowa as a right-to-work state as governor.”

“I owe that not only to the vast majority of Iowans but especially to the more than 110,000 of our fellow citizens who are out of work and need a governor who create a tax and regulatory structure that will really open Iowa for business,” he said.

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