March 20, 2008

ABI Defends Right to Work in Hotly Contested House Debate

House Approves “Wide-Open” Collective Bargaining Bill

Mike Ralston
President
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John R. Gilliland
Senior Vice President, 
Government Relations
515/235-0566

Nicole Molt
Director, 
Government Relations
515/235-0567

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Leisa Fox
Vice President, Membership
515/235-0575

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ABI Defends Right to Work in Hotly Contested House Debate

Starting Wednesday afternoon, State Representatives began discussing changes to Chapter 20, Iowa ’s public employee collective bargaining law.  HF 2645 was deemed only a “corrective” bill and was considered non-controversial when it passed the House Labor Committee unanimously last week.  Late Tuesday night, however, House leadership introduced a controversial amendment that would allow unions to unilaterally bargain requiring fees from non-union workers to be paid to unions in violation of Iowa 's Right to Work law.  The Amendment proposed a substantial number of items that may be bargained for including "other terms and conditions of employment".

Fortunately, ABI’s government relations team was able to work with a bipartisan group of pro-business legislators to draft an amendment that stopped this back-door repeal of Iowa ’s Right to Work law.  Thanks to these legislators and to ABI members’ direct communication with all legislators, the amendment was adopted by a unanimous vote to exclude union fees from collective bargaining. 

House Approves “Wide-Open” Collective Bargaining Bill

After a debate that lasted until 2:30am Thursday and concluded Thursday afternoon, the Iowa House finished debate on HF 2645 which broadly opens up collective bargaining for public sector unions and places taxpayers at risk.  The legislation passed 51-47, with 2 not voting.  The bill strikes current code which limits negotiations to “matters mutually agreed upon.”  It also gives unions the power to negotiate determination of the health insurance carrier, class size, discipline and discharge, grounds for discharge and imposition of other discipline, levels and types of disciplinary measures, and procedures for  resolving disputes; work uniforms and equipment, including allowances for uniforms and equipment; staffing levels and retirement systems and “other terms and conditions of employment.”  School boards, cities, counties, public hospitals, state schools and universities will lose great authority in the bargaining process.  Unfortunately, those entities must use the taxpayers’ money in the bargaining process and will lose the ability to take issues off the table under the amended HF 2645.  The result is likely an even greater burden on property taxes.

Additionally, local school boards will lose ability to evaluate, discipline and terminate teachers.  Under HF 2645 the teachers’ union may bargain for evaluation procedures, including the frequency of evaluations, the method of evaluation, evaluation forms and other evaluation instruments, evaluation criteria, the purposes for and use of evaluations, and remedial and employee performances improvement plans.

The Senate Democrats are expected to suspend the rules and push the legislation through the subcommittee and committee process on Thursday and debate this bill immediately.  If you are concerned about the associated costs of wide-open bargaining with taxpayers’ dollars, please contact your Senator immediately to voice your concern.

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