State employees union requests 4-percent raises

DES MOINES - A union that represents roughly 2,500 public employees in Iowa has requested 4-percent raises each of the next two fiscal years.

UE Local 893 Iowa United Professionals presented their initial collective bargaining proposal to state officials Tuesday at the Hoover Building. Their proposal calls for the two 4-percent raises and maintains the status quo in most other areas.

The state will offer its response in two weeks, and after that negotiations will be held in closed session.

UE Local 893 represents workers in many state departments, many of them social workers in the Department of Human Services, union officials said.

Those workers received no raises in the past two fiscal years as part of the previous collective bargaining agreement.

'Part of (the 4-percent raise proposals) is recouping (from the two-year wage freeze) and the cost of living. I think you're always struggling to keep up with the cost of living,” UE Local 893 president Becky Dawes said. 'And you always start at something that is higher. That's the honest answer.”

The union's proposal would cost the state an additional $32 million over the next two fiscal years, the governor's office estimated.

The Iowa United Professionals also proposed maintaining the status quo in regard to health insurance. Some of the workers represented by the union already pay a portion of their health insurance, union officials said.

Gov. Terry Branstad is asking all state employees pay for 20 percent of their health insurance.

Two previous public employee unions --- AFSCME Council 61 and the State Police Officers Council --- presented their initial proposals to the state. AFSCME, which represents more than 18,000 state employees, proposed four 2-percent raises over the two-year period. SPOC requested two annual 4-percent raises.

The state countered those proposals with an offer of two 1-percent raises.

'We have a tight budget overall as far as state government is concerned, but I wouldn't offer anything that the state couldn't afford,” state Department of Administrative Services director Janet Phipps told reporters after the state made its counter offer to AFSCME and SPOC.

The state estimated the AFSCME proposal would cost an additional $500 million-plus and SPOC's an additional $10 million.

The state estimated its counter proposal, if applied to all state employees, would cost an additional $190 million.