Jesse Case Republican legislators may be in store for more than they bargained for by trying to eviscerate public employee rights.Art Cullen’s Notebook is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I'm sure Mr. Case knows public sector employees don't have the right to strike in Iowa, so he must be talking about mustering the members who work for private employers to walk out or maybe have folks in both sectors do informational pickets. Is he talking to the other public-sector unions too, like AFSCME, the ISEA, and SEIU, as well as the Communications Workers of America, which also has public and private sector employees and all the IAFF locals? Now, if he's talking about going to the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, he could bring additional muscle to bear. And if he wants to go outside the AFL-CIO to the United Auto Workers, well, they're not afraid of picket lines; they proved that during the Deere strike two years ago. UAW Local 838 in Waterloo has about 2,700 members.
This backslide in public-employee bargaining started six or seven years ago when the scope of issues that could be brought to the bargaining table was severely constrained and limited to wages only in most cases. "Permissive" items the parties could and did negotiate by mutual consent went by the boards. It messed up some working relationships and bargaining history between public employers and bargaining units. I know of one municipality and its union settled a bunch of multi-year agreements before the law changed so they didn't have to deal with it. There are also "non-alingned" employee groups who were able to approach public employers on a host off issues based on union contracts. If Mr. Case wants to build some solidarity he could look beyond his local and probably is. Maybe he's throwing down the gauntlet. But with the Dems holding only 13 Iowa Senate seats and a third in the House, he's going to need more voices to make a helluva case across the aisle.
One valuable resource might be former state labor commisioner Dave Neil, who also is a former member of the Iowa Board of Regents and former state political director for the UAW. He just finished a stint as mayor of La Porte City a couple of years ago. He knows labor issues from both sides of the table.
Jack Kibbie, the staunch Democrat, long time legislator from Emmetsburg said Iowa is an anti-labor state. That’s why Iowa still has a right to work law. Reagan and Branstad crushed private sector unions years ago. Democrats stood around and watched.
I'm sure Mr. Case knows public sector employees don't have the right to strike in Iowa, so he must be talking about mustering the members who work for private employers to walk out or maybe have folks in both sectors do informational pickets. Is he talking to the other public-sector unions too, like AFSCME, the ISEA, and SEIU, as well as the Communications Workers of America, which also has public and private sector employees and all the IAFF locals? Now, if he's talking about going to the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, he could bring additional muscle to bear. And if he wants to go outside the AFL-CIO to the United Auto Workers, well, they're not afraid of picket lines; they proved that during the Deere strike two years ago. UAW Local 838 in Waterloo has about 2,700 members.
This backslide in public-employee bargaining started six or seven years ago when the scope of issues that could be brought to the bargaining table was severely constrained and limited to wages only in most cases. "Permissive" items the parties could and did negotiate by mutual consent went by the boards. It messed up some working relationships and bargaining history between public employers and bargaining units. I know of one municipality and its union settled a bunch of multi-year agreements before the law changed so they didn't have to deal with it. There are also "non-alingned" employee groups who were able to approach public employers on a host off issues based on union contracts. If Mr. Case wants to build some solidarity he could look beyond his local and probably is. Maybe he's throwing down the gauntlet. But with the Dems holding only 13 Iowa Senate seats and a third in the House, he's going to need more voices to make a helluva case across the aisle.
One valuable resource might be former state labor commisioner Dave Neil, who also is a former member of the Iowa Board of Regents and former state political director for the UAW. He just finished a stint as mayor of La Porte City a couple of years ago. He knows labor issues from both sides of the table.
Jack Kibbie, the staunch Democrat, long time legislator from Emmetsburg said Iowa is an anti-labor state. That’s why Iowa still has a right to work law. Reagan and Branstad crushed private sector unions years ago. Democrats stood around and watched.