Vote set by midday on Iowa collective bargaining law

Time certain has been called in the debate over changes in Iowa's collective bargaining law.

On a motion by Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, R-Garner, the House voted 52-35 to vote on the House File 525 no later than noon today.

The effect of a time certain vote is that at noon debate, which began Wednesday, will cease. Representatives then will vote on the bill and all remaining germane amendments.

Upmeyer signaled Thursday that the move to cut off debate was being considered.

“We have to manage this in some fashion,” she said. “We have other work to do.”

The House took up debate on the bill shortly after 8 a.m. in a rare Friday session. It has been the subject of lengthy debate this week beginning with a public hearing Monday that drew nearly 2,000 people – mostly labor union members.

Among the provisions of the bill, which minority Democrats are trying to kill, are:

• Removes health care as a subject of negotiations.
• Allows arbitrators to look at public and private salaries when determining wages and benefits in union negotiations.
• Provides a “free agency” provision, which allows a person to negotiate his or her own salary and wages outside of the union even in a union shop.

Lawmakers had debated the bill about 19 hours before Friday's session. Democrats introduced 100 amendments to “improve” the legislation. As of 10 p.m. Thursday, 18 had been debated.

Before the debate began, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Democrats' plan was to “debate the bill for several days.

“The majority party controls the agenda. The minority controls the clock,” he said.

Democrats planned to fight the bill because, “it takes away rights from firefighters and police officers and teachers and corrections officers and troopers hard-fought rights that took decades to obtain,” McCarthy said.

With a 60-40 Republican advantage in the House, the outcome is not in doubt. However, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, doubts the bill will be considered in that chamber.

“I don't think there is one member of our labor committee who has any interested in passing this bill,” he said. “This committee is not going to bring this bill out.”

He called Republican attempts to reform collective bargaining law a “war on the middle class in Iowa.”

The GOP's argument that changes are needed to rein in the cost of public employees is part of a “manufactured crisis to create a slush fund for tax cuts for the wealthy and out-of-state corporations.”

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, scoffed at that.

The changes are needed to “protect the middle class,” he said. “We have to get spending under control.”

One change Republicans are seeking in HF 525 is to require public employees to pay at least $100 a month for their health care insurance. Now, Paulsen said, 84 percent pay nothing. That change would save the state between $30 million and $40 million a year, he said.