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State Reps. Chris Rants (left) and McKinley Bailey
Former House Minority Leader Christopher Rants (R-Sioux City) wrote on his blog Wednesday that Democrats have found their 51st vote for a bill that would establish a prevailing wage on public projects. However, at least one of the legislators he says switched their position said Rants is incorrect.
The prevailing wage bill would set minimum standards for wages and benefits paid to workers on public projects. Labor unions have advocated for several years for its passage, saying it would assure that public projects do not go to companies that win bids based on cheap labor.
Opponents say the bill would increase costs for public projects and would keep small contractors out of the running for them because they can’t afford to pay for benefit packages.
The bill was passed out of the House Labor Committee on a 10-7 party-line vote after a two-hour public hearing Monday night. It is scheduled to be debated Thursday in the full House.
Rants said with the GOP at a 56-44 disadvantage in the Iowa House, Republicans were relying on “the Sovereign Seven – the ‘conservative pro-business’ Democrats who were going to block” union backed legislation like prevailing wage. He lists Reps. Brian Quirk, Doris Kelly, Roger Thomas, Geri Huser, McKinley Bailey, Delores Mertz, and Larry Marek as the seven Democrats who have voiced opposition to the bills.
From Rants’s blog:
Well, it appears that two of them, Reps Thomas and Bailey have decided that “the common good” requires that public projects financed by Iowa taxpayers must pay a “prevailing wage” as described in HF 333.
Rants said the deal was struck by changing the bill so that it only applies to projects that are funded 50 percent or more in state dollars. That would exempt many projects funded by local governments.
However, Bailey said Rants’ statement just isn’t so.
“I have not reached an agreement on prevailing wage legislation,” Bailey said in an e-mail to the Iowa Independent. “Mr. Rants is mistaken.”
Thomas could not be reached for comment.
Thursday’s debate on prevailing wage is expected to last well into the evening.
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