Rauner's union busting plan now state law in Iowa... Unions sue to block so-called 'Right to Work' attacks on organized workers, weakened unions...
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has been pushing the same reactionary anti-worker agenda since his election, but unlike adjacent Iowa, Indiana and Michigan, Illinois has strong Democratic Party leadership still committed to defending the state's labor unions. The union busting "Right to Work" law that has been pushed for Illinois by Governor Bruce Rauner just became law in Iowa, and unions have been forced to sue to try and block it. Meanwhile, a growing number of Illinois Know Nothings, including some Democrats, have been critical of House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has been central to protecting working people since the onslaught began with the election of Governor Rauner two years ago. As in Iowa, the feeble Democratic Party opponent (in this case, Pat Quinn, who chose the union busting racist Paul Vallas as his running mate without asking the unions) paved the road to Right To Work by its own neoliberalism. Protests sometimes work (but often not, as the protests in Madison against Scott Walker three years ago proved).
HERE IS AN UPDATE FROM IOWA...
Union Sues Over Iowa's New Collective Bargaining Law, Grant Rodgers and William Petroski February 20, 2017, The Des Moines Register
The new law bans public employee unions in most cases from negotiating over issues such as health insurance, evaluation procedures, staff reduction and leaves of absence for political purposes. Police officers and firefighters are exempted from that portion of the law, a move that AFSCME argues in the lawsuit violates the Iowa Constitution by creating "favored" and "disfavored" groups of government workers.
Protestors came to the Iowa capitol building on Feb. 13 to oppose a collective bargaining bill, which Gov. Terry Branstad signed on Friday., ,
A union representing 40,000 Iowa government workers filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to halt implementation of the state's new law altering the collective bargaining rights of public employees.
A Des Moines attorney representing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Iowa Council 61 described the changes as "draconian" in the complaint, which seeks an injunction hearing as soon as possible.
Gov. Terry Branstad signed the collective bargaining law Friday, less than a day after it passed both chambers of the GOP-controlled Legislature.
It bans public employee unions in most cases from negotiating over issues such as health insurance, evaluation procedures, staff reduction and leaves of absence for political purposes. Police officers and firefighters are exempted from that portion of the law, a move that AFSCME argues in the lawsuit violates the Iowa Constitution by creating "favored" and "disfavored" groups of government workers.
“We are basically suing over the unconstitutionality of the law,” AFSCME President Danny Homan said at a news conference. “We believe the law treats public employees differently.”
One example is how police on Iowa’s college campuses will not have the same bargaining rights as other police officers in Iowa, even though they have the same duties and face similar dangers, Homan said. He also noted that prison correctional officers are not considered public safety employees, yet he noted they can face serious threats, such as HIV-infected inmates throwing urine on them.
The lawsuit contends that the new law violates Article 1, Section 6 of the Iowa Constitution that reads, in part, "the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.”
Homan also contended that supporters of the bill have been misrepresenting the provisions of the legislation.
“For any Republican legislator who says we have the ability to sit down and talk with the employer about things that are not listed as illegal, it is wrong,” Homan said.
The lawsuit is filed in Polk County District Court, but Homan said he ultimately expects the case to be decided by the Iowa Supreme Court.
The lawsuit is similar in some ways to litigation that labor unions took to both state and federal courts following the passage of Act 10 in Wisconsin, a 2011 law that ended collective bargaining for public employees. Union lawsuits there were ultimately unsuccessful in front of both the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
But Lester Pines, a Madison, Wis., attorney who serves as counsel to the local teachers' union, said an Iowa lawsuit could turn out differently.
"Article 1, Section 6 of the Iowa Constitution is very specific," he said. “I really wish I would've had this provision to argue in Wisconsin, to be honest with you."
Ben Hammes, a spokesperson for Branstad, said he could not comment on the merits of the lawsuit. But the law was a necessary step that gives state and local governments more freedom to "effectively manage their resources," he said.
"It's not surprising that Danny Homan, the former vice chair of the Democrat Party, has desperately decided to run to the courts with expensive litigation," he said. "Since the 1970s, organized labor and their special interests have hid behind an outdated law that routinely won out against the best interests of Iowa taxpayers who make public employment possible. I can proudly say that will no longer be the case."
Four public employees who are AFSCME members are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit: a corrections officer, an Iowa State University police officer, a motor vehicle enforcement officer and a drafter.
Labor groups and Democrats have assailed the new law as an attack on workers, while Republican lawmakers have argued that the measures protect taxpayers and give more control to local government leaders.
By: Susan Hickey, LCSW
Reposting Wisconsin article on the Aftermath of the Right to Work Law passage
This article needs to be re-posted as a salutatory tale about Wisconsin's Right to Work law and its effects on unionism especially after Iowa's passage of a very stringent Right to Work law. Can Illinois labor groups keep this from happening here?
Walker’s anti-union law has labor reeling in Wisconsin, By Robert Samuels, Washington Post, February 22, 2015 at 10:50 PM
KING, Wis. — At the old union hall here on a recent afternoon, Terry Magnant sat at the head of a table surrounded by 18 empty chairs. A members meeting had been scheduled to start a half-hour earlier, but the small house, with its cracked walls and loose roof shingles, was lonely and desolate. “There used to be a lot more people coming,” said Magnant, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, sighing. The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more trans-formative than many had predicted.
Walker had vowed that union power would shrink, workers would be judged on their merits, and local governments would save money. Unions had warned that workers would lose benefits and be forced to take on second jobs or find new careers.
Many of those changes came to pass, but the once-thriving public-sector unions were not just shrunken — they were crippled. Unions representing teachers, professors, trash collectors and other government employees are struggling to stem plummeting membership rolls and retain relevance in the state where they got their start…
The massive movement to protest the union busting of then newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker led into the "Recall Walker" movement. The movement got more than a million signatures on recall petitions, but then blew their chances by putting a Wisconsin version of Rahm Emanuel as the Democratic Party alternative to Walker and using many of the same diversity first arguments before the actual voting, must as the Democrats have done in their suicidal work in the 2016 election for President of the United States: poor candidate, ignoring the actual working class issues facing the voters, and too much emphasis on the myths of protest politics as opposed to work in the precincts county by county. But recalling the benefits that union membership might have brought before the 2011 law stripped most public-sector unions of their collective-bargaining rights is difficult when workers consider the challenges of the present. “I don’t see the point of being in a union anymore,” said Dan Anliker, a 34-year-old technology teacher and father of two in Reedsburg, a tiny city about 60 miles northwest of Madison.
The law required most public employees to pay more for health insurance and to pay more into retirement savings, resulting in an 8 to 10 percent drop in take-home pay. To help compensate for the loss, Anliker said he took an additional 10-hour-a-week job. “Everyone’s on their own island now,” he said. “If you do a good job, everything will take care of itself. The money I’d spend on dues is way more valuable to buy groceries for my family.”
Sean Karsten, a 32-year-old middle and high school reading instructor in his first year of teaching in Reedsburg, said the unions are “just not something I concern myself with.” “I just look to keep improving my teaching in the best way I can and try to keep my nose out of the other stuff,” he said.
Walker has pointed to the unions’ membership troubles as a victory — presenting himself as a conservative warrior unafraid of taking on big battles against liberal interests.
Walker’s administration has said forcing public employees to contribute more to retirement plans and health insurance helped local governments save $3 billion. The governor also has credited the 2011 law with saving homeowners money on property taxes while giving school districts the ability to make reforms that increased third-grade reading levels and high school graduation rates. And the law has emboldened Republican state lawmakers to further challenge Wisconsin’s labor movement this year by pushing right-to-work legislation that would allow private-sector workers to opt out of paying union dues — a measure Walker has said he would sign.
“We took the power away from the big-government special interests and put it firmly in the hands of the hard-working taxpayers,” Walker told Iowa Republicans recently. “That is what we need more of in this great country. The liberals don’t like that.”
Union officials declined to release precise membership data but confirmed in interviews that enrollment is dramatically lower since the new law was signed in 2011.
The state branch of the National Education Association, once 100,000 strong, has seen its membership drop by a third. The American Federation of Teachers, which organized in the college system, saw a 50 percent decline. The 70,000-person membership in the state employees union has fallen by 70 percent. The decline is politically significant in Wisconsin, a presidential battleground where the unions have played a central role in Democrats’ get-out-the-vote drives.
John Ahlquist, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who specializes in labor movements, said Walker had “effectively dismantled the financial and organizing structure of unions in Wisconsin.” “Although it is too early to tell if unions are near the end of their political power here, they are in a very vulnerable position,” Ahlquist said.
[Samuels, R. (2015, February 22). Walker’s anti-union law has labor reeling in Wisconsin. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/in-wisconsin-walkers-anti-union-law-has-crippled-labor-movement/2015/02/22/1eb3ef82-b6f1-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html]