State, law officers resume contract talks after collective bargaining overhaul

WEST DES MOINES - Negotiators for the state and a union representing public safety employees hit the restart button Monday in talks aimed at reaching a new two-year labor agreement by March 15.

The compressed timeline was precipitated by the Legislature's swift action to scrap Iowa's 1974 collective bargaining law and replace it with a sweeping overhaul that Gov. Terry Branstad signed Friday to take effect immediately. The state Public Employment Relations Board notified negotiators late last week that contract talks had to start anew if a voluntary agreement hadn't been reached before Feb. 17.

'It is what it is and now we're just trying to figure out how we move forward from here,” said Jason Bardsley, a state trooper from Des Moines and president of the State Police Officers Council, a union representing about 600 Iowa State troopers, special agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation and the Division of Narcotics Enforcement, state fire inspectors and agents, Iowa conservation officers and Iowa park rangers.

Both sides presented opening positions Monday that were similar to what they proposed in November.

The state's unionized law enforcement employees requested 3 percent across-the-board pay increases for each of the next two fiscal years beginning on July 1. The State Police Officers Council's proposal also calls for maintaining a health plan where the state pays 80 percent of insurance premiums while seeking changes in areas of overtime policy, transfers and callback time, clothing allowances and other workplace issues.

Janet Phipps, director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and lead state negotiator, said the state was sticking to its position of not offering an insurance proposal at this time, saying 'the state agrees to provide health and dental benefits as determined by the state to eligible bargaining unit members.”

Gov. Terry Branstad's administration first signaled a desire to change Iowa's collective bargaining law on Nov. 21 by announcing it was not including a specific insurance proposal as a mandatory item of bargaining pending possible action once the GOP-led Legislature convened in January.

Branstad has said he would like to explore the option of creating a larger risk pool of public employees at the state, county, city and school district levels that would help drive down costs for all the entities that choose to participate. However, a lead GOP author of the collective bargaining rewrite last week said Republicans were cool to the proposal especially for local entities.

Branstad reiterated Monday that the pooling approach would reduce state health insurance costs and free up more money for wages in the future. The state offer to the State Police Officers Council Monday was unchanged at a 1 percent across-the-board increase for the next two fiscal years.

Bardsley said the uncertainty over the future of their health care coverage is probably causing angst among his members.

'We're looking forward to sitting down with the state today and seeing where things go. We'll just see how things are handled,” he said. The council leader also expressed concern over the compressed timeline that requires talks to be wrapped up in less than one month.

On Monday an attorney for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61 union filed a lawsuit on behalf of its 40,000 workers challenging the state's new collective bargaining law for public sector employees.

AFSCME President Danny Homan said the only thing his members may bargain over now are their base wages, while people who do similar work - like police officers - were exempted from the new law, so they can discuss 17 subjects as they negotiate their contracts.

'Why have we created a system in this state that treats public employees that are virtually doing the same work differently than other employees?” Homan told reporters during a conference call.

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