Iowa officials may add new hurdle to union certification elections

Iowa lawmakers are considering adding new requirements for public-sector workers who vote to maintain their union organizations.

State officials say the proposed changes are in line with industry standards and will ensure the integrity of the voting process.

But union leaders say the plan — which comes one year after the Iowa Legislature voted to dramatically weaken public-sector unions' ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits — will further erode their ability to organize.

"We’re going to an extreme step, which I believe will disenfranchise people," said Danny Homan, president of AFSCME Iowa Council 61. The AFSCME union represents more than 40,000 public employees in Iowa.

High stakes

Last year, then-Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law changes requiring public-sector union workers to "certify" their bargaining units ahead of each new contract negotiation — typically every two or three years. Those votes effectively grant union leaders permission to collectively negotiate contracts and pay on workers' behalf.

Previously, unions conducted those elections once and then again only if one of their members petitioned for a decertification.

In order to remain certified, union bargaining units now need to win approval from a majority of all employees covered under their contracts — not just a majority of people who vote in the election. People who choose not to vote are counted as "no" votes opposed to certification.

DATABASE: Iowa Public-Sector Union Recertification Votes

The stakes are high: Bargaining units that fail to gain approval are dissolved and must wait two years before re-unionizing.

New proposed requirement

The proposed changes, which were discussed by a legislative committee Friday, would add another requirement: Union workers would need to register to vote before casting a ballot in their union elections.

The registration period would begin three weeks prior to the start of an election and last one week into the two-week voting period.

"This goes back to the integrity of the vote," said Amber DeSmet, an administrative law judge with the state's Public Employment Relations Board. "This is what we’re being told is the industry standard."

She said the vendor the state is working with — Everybody Votes — will not continue working with the state unless it adopts these standards. Other vendors were "astronomically" more expensive, said DeSmet, and those costs would be passed onto the unions, which are required by law to pay for the costs of the election.

In the first certification elections held under the new collective bargaining law, voters had to provide the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their birth dates in order to vote.

But Mike Cormack, chairman of PERB, said it's concerning that employers also have that employee information.

He said there was no evidence of fraud, but "what’s to stop (your employer) from logging on and voting for you?"

If the new proposal is implemented, voters will have to provide additional information, and they'll receive unique access codes they can use to log on and vote when the voting period begins.

"We think it’s not a terribly onerous process," Cormack said.

Bipartisan questions

But Democrat and Republican legislators expressed concerns about the process, wondering whether it put too many hurdles in front of people hoping to vote — particularly if they lose or forget their unique access code.

"I don’t understand why someone couldn’t go up there and say, 'Here’s my pay stub, here’s my ID,'" said Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa. "Unless the employer specifically has said I’ve been terminated, I don’t understand why I can’t prove who I am. So there’s additional questions that maybe need to be asked in this process."

Homan, of the public worker's union, said it was undemocratic to make the process more cumbersome.

"People are just going to say, 'To heck with this.' And that’s not fair," he said. "This should be easy for people to vote."

Union members already voted for their unions

In the first major rounds of voting under the new law, Iowa public-sector union workers have voted overwhelmingly to maintain their certifications.

In the first round of certification votes held in September 2017, 13 bargaining units representing teachers and faculty voted to maintain their union affiliations; no unions voted to decertify. About 90 percent of eligible voters participated in that election.

In the second round of voting, held in October 2017, 436 out of 468 public-sector bargaining units voted to recertify their organizations. Voter participation was 88 percent.

Legislative Republicans who crafted the law say the change to certification rules were intended to make sure unions are being held accountable to all of their members.

But labor leaders and union activists say it's an unfair burden designed to reduce the number of unions across the state and weaken their influence.

The Public Employment Relations Board will hold its next round of voting this October when an estimated 80,000 union workers representing about 900 bargaining units will be eligible to vote.