At Tuesday's Des Moines County Board of Supervisors meeting, County Employees one again protested planned changes to their contracts.

County employees once again held signs Tuesday during the Des Moines County Board of Supervisors meeting to protest planned contract changes.



Unlike last week’s demonstration, where county employees sat in the back row and held signs only during the public input session, this time workers filled all three rows of seats and held signs throughout the meeting.



The meeting room was so packed maintenance workers had to bring in additional chairs.



“If your meetings were held at night, this place would be even more packed,” said Ryan Drew, president of the Des Moines-Henry County Labor Council.



The daytime attendance, Drew reasoned, was a show that county employees do not want the permissive language — non-wage items not subject to collective bargaining — removed from their contract.



Drew previously addressed the board Jan. 29 in regard to how contracts ensure a skilled workforce, but Tuesday he spoke specifically about workers’ inability to strike in response to dissatisfaction with working conditions.



“If you did this in the real world, you wouldn’t have a workforce the next day. But in Iowa, we handicap employees,” Drew said.



Drew was referencing a provision in Chapter 20, the portion of Iowa law that deals with collective bargaining and public employee unions, which prohibits public employees from striking. The Iowa Legislature in 2017 did away with many of the provisions protecting non-safety public employees but kept the anti-striking provision.



Drew was not the only person who has addressed the board for a second time.



Tom Courtney of Burlington, a former Democratic state senator and a member of the Burlington School Board, also was at the meeting.



“You are decimating these contracts,” Courtney said as he addressed the board for the second consecutive week.



Courtney said while it has been claimed the handbooks are the same as a contract, the fact that the supervisors wish to make the change to a handbook shows there is a difference.



Negotiations on contracts took place Tuesday and will continue today.



While talk of the contracts is what dominated the meeting, planned agenda item changes cut the session short.



Board chairman Tom Broeker opened the meeting by scrapping discussion related to the Skunk River subdivision and setting a date for a general obligation loan hearing.



The budget work session also was cancelled, making it the second week in a row for cancellation of the budget work session. While Broeker said he couldn’t go into the details, he mentioned scheduling conflicts involving county staff prevented both meetings.



Broeker said he isn’t concerned about finishing the budget on schedule.



“We’ll get it done Thursday,” he said.



The date for the budget hearing was set for 9 a.m. March 12 at the courthouse.



In other business, the board also heard from Mental Health Director Ken Hyndman about a new managed care provider, and from Conservation Director Chris Lee about the safety of ice fishing.



“The ice is 6 or 7 inches thick and cloudy so it can get dangerous quickly,” Lee said. He added ice fishers have been having great luck catching fish.