Note: This op ed contains a number of statistics. Links to the sources of most of the numbers are provided below for the benefit of anyone using the piece for research.  -- N.J.

In Iowa City, with six-figure professionals and million-dollar coaches, the play’s a useful reminder of our dependence on our service and trades neighbors.

Iowa’s not very friendly to working people. The latest example? Those in our community who are fighting an innovative and extremely modest Project Labor Agreement for a school construction project.

Iowa’s business leaders, noting that Iowa ranks 43rd in wages, urged in “Iowa: The State of Our Future 2010” that we “recruit and develop businesses that pay a livable wage.”

Those lucky enough to work full time, who are covered by Iowa’s minimum wage of $5.15 (many aren’t), earn $3000 less than the federal poverty level for a family of three ($13,423). Experts put that Iowa family’s livable wage at $29,621.

Iowa’s anti-union legislation (“right to work”) puts us in a minority of states that includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina.

From 1950 until now, anti-union bashing has driven national union membership from 35 percent to 13 percent of the workforce. Iowa’s percentage is less.

With corporate campaign contributions going to Democrats and Republicans alike, the disparity between the income of CEOs and hourly workers has gone from 42:1 in 1980 to 531:1 in 2000. Two million workers recently fired for the sake of profits and executive bonuses don’t even have that.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports 70 percent of its investigations involve things management knew, or ought to have known, would cause serious injury or death. Nearly 6000 workers a year are killed, more than 5 million injured.

So what is this proposed “Project Labor Agreement” or PLA?

It doesn’t require workers be union members. Non-union contractors can hire whomever they want. It doesn’t guarantee a livable wage for those who build our schools, just a “prevailing” wage and benefits. It doesn’t even apply to all the construction, just one little school.

What it does do is put all bidders for that school on a level playing field. They must compete on the basis of quality of construction, on-time completion and managerial skill. No more winning contracts by driving down wages to the lowest possible level. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled PLAs are perfectly legal.

A major Des Moines project, and school districts elsewhere, find PLAs often improve the quality of construction, speed completion, and reduce costs. They occasionally result in slightly higher initial costs. But savings from roofs that don’t leak quickly make up any difference.

Even if PLAs were more expensive, is initial cost our only criterion? Do we look for the cheapest surgeon for our quadruple bypass? The cheapest mechanic for our car?

Some argue “what’s good for kids” is cheapest prices and lowest wages.

They’re not. How is it good for Iowa’s kids to increase that 12.5 percent of them who live in poverty by short-changing their parents? Sports programs benefiting the few aren’t the cheapest way to run a school system either. We fund them anyway.

John Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, observed that a university community that does not value excellence in plumbers and philosophers soon finds that “neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

What’s good for kids? To know they don’t have to leave Iowa for a job that supports a family. To know their adult role models respect both plumbers and philosophers.

The same folks who did so much of the heavy labor in getting the school bond issue passed will do the heavy labor in constructing the projects. All they’re asking for is a school district that will stop perpetuating Iowa’s anti-labor traditions, for one with the decency to try a tiny, experimental PLA.

If we do it, that will create a lesson, and a school house, that are truly “good for kids.”
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Nicholas Johnson is a former Iowa City school board member, FCC commissioner, and Press-Citizen columnist who teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. He can be reached via his Website at www.nicholasjohnson.org.

Development Work Group, "Iowa: The State of Our Future 2010," Oct. 20, 1999: “Recruit and develop businesses that pay a livable wage; By 2010, Iowa is ranked 20th in wages (currently 43rd).”

http://www.iowa2010.state.ia.us/about/devel_isssues.html
 
 

Business Owners Tool Kit. Iowa Minimum Wage Law is $5.15 an hour, with numerous exceptions.

http://www.toolkit.cch.com/pops/P98_05_4046_IA.asp

Those without a livable wage rely on public assistance programs (WIC, Food Stamps), sub-standard housing, no health insurance, multiple jobs.

http://www.vtlivablewage.org/factsfigures.html#anchor180460

National Priorities Project, “The State of the States 2001 . . . Iowa,” vol. 4, issue 1, 2001.
[Iowa] Children living in poverty 12.5%
[Iowa] Minimum wage $5.15 $10,712
Federal annual poverty line for a family of three $13,423
Living wage for a family of three $14.24 $29,621

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/sos2001/ia.pdf
 
 

Iowa is one of 22 right to work states, along with Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina.

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/joinunions/whyjoin/uniondifference/uniondiff7.cfm
 
 

“Trends in Union Membership” 13.2 percent of workers belong to unions (From U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics).

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/joinunions/whyjoin/uniondifference/uniondiff11.cfm

Angela D. Hill, “The Sleeping Giant,” Inside Business, Sept. 6, 1999: 35% of workers belonged to unions in the 1950s.

http://www.richmond.com/InsideBusiness/output.cfm?ID=3772

Monthly Labor Review Online, Regional Trends, vol. 122, no. 6, June 1999: 12.5 percent of workers in Iowa belong to unions, making the state 27th in the U.S.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/06/regtrend.htm
 
 

Mark Blyth, “The Big Question,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, September 2002:  “In 1980, the average CEO made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay, by 1990 the ratio was 1:85, and by 2000 the average CEO made 531 times the average worker. In 2001, median CEO pay grew by 7 percent, despite a 35 percent decline in corporate profits and the beginnings of a general collapse in stock prices.”

http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0902web/bigques.html
 
 

OSHA Statistics, Worker Injuries/Illnesses/Fatalities for 2001

In 2001, occupational injury and illness rates . . .  [included] 5.2 million injuries/illnesses among private sector firms [and] . . .  5,900 worker deaths . . ..

Federal Inspections - Fiscal Year 2002

416
(0.5%)
Willful(1)

54,842
(70%)
Serious(2)

. . .

Footnote (2) A violation where there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result and that the employer knew, or should have known, of the hazard.

 http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/oshafacts.html