Brianne Pfannenstiel, and William Petroski

Des Moines Register

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday proposed sweeping changes to Iowa's collective bargaining laws that govern the way 184,000 of the state's teachers, corrections officers and other public sector union workers negotiate for wages, health care and other employment benefits.

Representatives from labor unions across the state filled the Capitol to protest the changes, chanting and holding signs while urging their elected officials to back down from a piece of legislation that faces all but inevitable passage.

"(Republicans) have control of both houses," said Larry Catherwood, a member of the United Auto Workers Local 893 in Marshalltown. "At the same time, they can go too far with it. They have to be elected again. … We just want to let them know we're not going away."

Since gaining control of the House, Senate and governor's office for the first time in nearly 20 years, Iowa Republicans have called collective bargaining reform one of their top priorities. Both the House and Senate plan to hold subcommittees on the legislation Wednesday, setting it on a course to receive final approval from the governor as early as next week. Gov. Terry Branstad even called an unscheduled afternoon press conference with Lt. Gov Kim Reynolds and Republican legislative leaders to express his support for the bill.

“I am very optimistic about the chances that we have for finally making changes that are in the best interests of the taxpayers of Iowa and the cities and counties and school districts, and the state of Iowa,” Branstad said.

Republicans say they are united in their efforts to advance the bill, and other conservative-oriented groups are calling the proposed changes a welcome step forward.

"I think it’s an extremely bold proposal," said Drew Klein, director of the Iowa chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. "When you really start to dig into the substance of this bill, it makes a number of really important changes. It does so in a common sense way. It does so while protecting our government services but also making sure that we’re protecting budgets at the state and local level as well."

The changes would remove health insurance from mandatory contract negotiations for most public-sector union workers, and it would limit mandatory negotiations only to base wages, cutting out discussions over things like insurance, evaluation procedures and seniority-related benefits. Other changes are proposed to the arbitration and certification process for unions.

“The only thing that we will be able to is bargain over is wages. Nothing else." said Danny Homan, president of Council 61 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 40,000 Iowa public employees. "Wages are not the most important thing that we want to bargain over. It is health insurance, layoffs, transfers … It’s all those other elements in the contract."

Tammy Wawro, president of the Iowa State Education Association, which represents 34,000 Iowa school employees, described the legislation as “punitive” and lacking any respect for public employees.

“I am beyond angry today," she said. "I am absolutely mortified."

Public safety workers exempted

The bill focuses only on public sector unions, and it exempts public safety workers such as firefighters and police officers from many of the bill's broadest changes.

House Labor Committee Chairman and bill sponsor Rep. Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada, said that's because their jobs regularly put them in harm's way.

"They’re one of the few entities that put on a bulletproof vest in the morning," he said. "And they go out and they don’t know who they’re stopping. They may be in a remote area. So there are some things with their job that I think are different than most state employees."

But Joe Van Haalen, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 4 in Des Moines, said he does not believe public safety officials are the only ones who should be spared.

"There’s a lot of other groups out there that are extremely important parts of our society and keep us all safe and keep the state of Iowa working … that aren’t included in this exemption that we feel are important to the state of Iowa," he said, citing teachers and nurses specifically.

All public sector union employees, including public safety workers, would be barred from automatically deducting union dues and other political contributions from their payroll.

Van Haalen said those changes in particular make him think this bill is about "union busting."

"They don’t do anything to achieve any kind of a savings for the cities, for the state that we can see," he said. "We’d like to know a little bit more about why these things are important to them. Because as we see it it’s just a way for them to break some of the bigger unions."

Republicans flatly deny that charge.

"If it was union busting, what we would have done would have been to rip Chapter 20 right of the code book," Deyoe said, referencing the section of Iowa Code outlining collective bargaining. "This is not that."

Firefighters as well as members of private sector unions rallied alongside public union workers at the Capitol on Tuesday.

"We do everything we can for our brothers and sisters that are union," said Richard Duddeck, president of United Auto Workers Local 1982 in Dyersville. "It doesn’t matter private or public. We all support each other. We all want a good wage, good working conditions."

He wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with a clenched fist, the American flag, and the words, "We, the people have had enough."

Union certifications

The bills — House Study Bill 84 and Senate File 213 — also would require unions to go through a certification process ahead of each new contract negotiation. That would require a majority of their members to agree to be represented by union negotiators.

"We felt like we needed to basically make sure … that the majority of the members of that bargaining unit actually want to have the union representing them," said Deyoe.

It would require a majority of all union members to cast votes in support of the negotiator, rather than just a majority of votes cast. And if no option receives a majority, then the union would not be certified. Current law requires that a runoff election be conducted.

Deyoe said Wisconsin requires annual certification votes. Iowa would require them at the start of each new contract, which would likely be every two or three years.

Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines, a lawyer and the top Democrat on the Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee, said the changes amount to a gutting of the state's collective bargaining laws.

"I can tell you that it is a major policy change in the state of Iowa," he said "It does not eliminate Chapter 20, but it does gut it. It voids it of a lot of meaning in a lot of areas."

He and many others said they were concerned not only with the content of the legislation, but the manner in which it was introduced. Democrats and labor leaders said Republicans did not consult them about any of the changes. They received the 68-page bill 24 hours ahead of the scheduled subcommittees.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, brushed off those concerns, saying "everyone is going to be heard" throughout the process, which includes two public subcommittees held during the day Wednesday and at least one public hearing next week.

“You know, we have heard loud and clear from Iowans that they believe that government can do much better in the service that we are providing, and are looking for a better deal," he said. "The bill before us really focuses on how we can bring these decisions closer to the people and more local control. How we can keep our best teachers in the classroom, our best employees on the line, serving Iowans, and creating an environment where new innovation and creativity can take place."

University leaders react

Union leaders at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa described the legislation as a “worst-case scenario” and “worse than Wisconsin.”

“It falls just short of making collective bargaining illegal in the state,” said Landon Elkind, president of the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, UE Local 896.

Joe Gorton, president of United Faculty/AAUP at UNI, called the legislation “a full scale attack on the empowerment of UNI faculty.”

“Anybody who has the best interest of this university at heart could not possibly support this very radical and destructive bill,” said Gorton, a criminology professor at UNI.

Faculty at the Cedar Falls-based university have been represented by the union since 1976.

Both labor leaders said their unions will be calling on the broader university communities to lobby against the legislation and to continue talks about “how we can survive these changes.”

“We need all the allies and friends we can get,” said Elkind, a UI graduate student in philosophy.

UI officials said last week that UI graduate employees would continue to receive competitive benefits packages despite any changes to the state's collective bargaining law.