Workin' Man Blues?

I found it interesting that organized labor and Dummycrat Iowa legislators were complaining about an Illinois firm's contracting at a University of Iowa construction site.

“We are not pleased with them bringing out-of-state contractors and out-of-state workers on this publicly funded project,” Scott Smith, president of the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Building Trades Council, said. “I-JOBS was funded to put Iowa workers back to work.”

I don't remember their bitchin' last year on the prison job at Fort Madison (I-JOBS?) and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Maybe it was because their buddy, the Big Lug Nut, was running state government and had an Illinois Carpenters Union, that had been hired for the prison job, marching with him at the University of Iowa Homecoming parade (Sweating With An Oldie).

It seems to me the only complaint came from the Master Builders of Iowa who argued that the contract should have been awarded to an Iowa firm.

As a matter of fact, representatives of the Southeast Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council picketed outside Master Builders of Iowa's Des Moines office trying to get them to drop a lawsuit seeking to stop the awarding of the contract to the same Illinois contractor on the U of I project.

I-JOBS?

Iowa has been bonded, by the Big Lug Nut, into debt for the next 20 plus years, at a cost of $875 million (plus interest), so the state can --

create/retain jobs

rebuild communities impacted by the natural disasters of 2008

invest in Iowa’s infrastructure

promote long-term economic growth

There are now concerns in Fort Madison because an Illinois contractor has submitted the lowest base bid to build a new state maximum-security prison and that is raising questions about how many construction jobs will be held by out-of-state workers.

Technically, Illinois jobs are still "I" jobs and the scientific community is united in that fact.

How is it that work on the prison can be ahead of schedule despite all the year’s rain when Culver blamed the rain as the reason construction jobs fell to the lowest number in Iowa in 10 years?

Yesterday, The I-JOBS Board awarded Cedar Rapids $1.075 million to help build a floodable outdoor riverfront amphitheater that last month the city listed as disaster-prevention.