Iowa is unfriendly to workers and unions

In her April 10 column, Patricia Patnode seems to claim that BBQs and brownies will reinvigorate dormant union membership, ignoring decades of union-busting business practices and legislation that makes starting and sustaining a union all but impossible. Of course workers are looking for jobs every few years when businesses like Seaboard Triumph steal their wages. Of course they’re managing their own retirements when pension plans are as rare as unimpaired water in Iowa. Who bothers to join a union in right-to-work states when you can get a free ride on the benefits without buying in? If Patnode really wants American workers to “put down roots,” she’d better take a long hard look at the laws and business practices that poison the soil in which to do it.

Mike Schluckebier

Iowa City