Changes suggested for bargaining process for public employees

DES MOINES - A labor consultant's report to Gov. Terry Branstad recommends changing the way the state figures raises and benefits for public employees during bargaining.

Leon Shearer, the governor's adviser on labor and management issues, released his report last week.

Key among his recommendations are:

• To use both public and private salaries as comparables in wage negotiations, rather than only public salaries.
• To eliminate the rule that requires one manager for every 15 employees.
• To make public-sector employee contributions to health coverage more in line with the contributions made by their private-sector peers.

“We just got (the recommendations), and we're still looking at them,” said Charlie Wishman, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61, which represents 40,000 public employees in Iowa. “This is something we want to take a good, long look at, and we'll definitely have something to say about them.”

Shearer was hired in December to conduct a broad review of the process used in public bargaining with state employees.

Former Gov. Chet Culver signed labor deals with public employee unions after he lost the November election to Branstad but before the new governor was sworn in.

“I always operated under the assumption that our negotiating structure was very similar to what was going on in the other states,” said Lance Horbarch, a Tama Republican who chairs the House Labor Committee. “I was really surprised that the taxpayer is at a greater disadvantage in the negotiation structure governed by the Iowa law.”

Horbach said he wants to “go a little bit deeper” into the recommendations and said he wants to bring legislation to the floor this session based on what his committee finds.

“We have to not just convince the public if we make some changes - we have to convince both sides, or at least defend a position why we want to make that change,” Horbach said.

His strategy for moving the legislation forward, however, remains to be seen.

“When this goes to the Senate, this is not going to be a piece of legislation that they're going to have an appetite for, so if I put it all in one, I'm concerned they may throw even the good out with the bad,” Horbarch said. “And if you do it in singular form, you can overwhelm and they can say, ‘Oh, this is another Chapter 20 bill; we're not even going to look at it.'”

Chapter 20 of the Iowa Code lays out the rules governing collective bargaining.

By Michael Wiser, Gazette Des Moines Bureau