University of Iowa graduate students take regent offer

IOWA CITY - Taking a cue from a University of Iowa health care union, the UI graduate student union voted Monday to accept the Board of Regents' last contract offer as lawmakers debate gutting collective bargaining rules.

The Campaign to Organize Graduate Students - or COGS, which represents 2,183 UI graduate student employees - voted to accept the two-year contract the board offered Dec. 5. That deal comes with a 2 percent across-the-board pay raise, amounting to a 1.4 percent salary bump in each year. It holds the status quo on other benefits including health insurance coverage and tuition scholarships.

Proposed changes to Iowa's collective bargaining law for public employees would limit mandatory bargaining topics to just wages and not benefits. Even wage bargaining would be limited to raises no higher than 3 percent, or the consumer price index.

COGS leadership said taking the board's December offer would give the grad student employees 'a chance of keeping the current contract language, including our health care and tuition coverage.”

The Service Employees International Union Local 199 last week also voted to ratify the most recent offer from the regents, which included a 2-percent raise in each of the next two years for thousands of nurses, social workers and pharmacists.

COGS and United Faculty, a union representing 550 University of Northern Iowa faculty members, have filed complaints with the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board accusing the regents of bargaining in bad faith by refusing to continue discussions until lawmakers vote on the proposed collective bargaining changes.

Regents have not accepted the two unions' acquiescence to their original offers.