However, AFSCME attorney Mark Hedberg argued the law should be struck down because it grants greater bargaining rights to public safety employees than other identically situated workers and infringes on members’ rights to associate with and be represented by their union.

“We don’t have a right to bargain, but when the state is granting out a privilege, it can’t do so based upon the association that a person has with various groups; and in this case, we believe they gerrymandered the statute,” Hedberg said.

The law “has taken away their collective bargaining rights and desperately affected their ability to bargain for terms and conditions of employment,” he said.

Outside the Iowa Judicial Building, ISEA President Mike Beranek told reporters the Supreme Court “is the next step in our fight to win back the rights taken from our members by the Iowa Legislature.”