IT employees escape ‘Gitmo Iowa State’

All Iowa State University employees who had been sitting in a campus room they dubbed 'Gitmo Iowa State” now are at home.

The 11 unionized ITS employees whose positions were cut as part of the restructuring were given an option in a July 12 memo to spend their time at home on paid 'nonworking status,” ISU spokesman John McCarroll said.

Before that, the cut employees had been given two options for spending their days at Iowa State while in limbo during reorganization: stay in the campus room and 'explore job opportunities and skill development,” or help with office work, campus services, building maintenance or custodial tasks.

Union requirements barred the university from immediately parting ways with the employees, but system access was denied for laid-off IT employees.

Although the first two options remain on the table, all 11 workers by July 15 told ISU human resources they would stay home on paid 'nonworking status.” McCarroll confirmed the union employees didn't have that option before The Gazette on July 7 reported the employees were sitting in what they called 'Gitmo Iowa State.” He didn't explain why.

The 11 unionized employees are among 23 ITS workers who on May 25 learned their positions were being eliminated because of reorganization. IT employs about 175 people.

Jim Kurtenbach - who was named interim chief information officer in January 2015 and appointed permanently in July, without a formal search - initiated the reorganization.

'This is the first time in over 10 years - since the merger that formed ITS - that we have stepped back to review our business processes, to examine how technology has affected our workload and workforce needs and to identify redundancies,” he wrote in May to ITS employees.

One of the other 23 cut workers is a unionized employee who took a different job on campus, and the remaining 11 are classified as 'professional and scientific” employees - not represented by a union but covered by ISU policy requiring notice of 90 days in cases of position elimination.

Of those professional and scientific employees, eight were sent home. Three kept working.

Through July 1 - covering 27 work days in May and June - Iowa State had paid $126,234 to nonworking employees as part of the restructuring, McCarroll said. An updated figure was not available.

Two of the cut professional and scientific employees have landed new ISU jobs, and the remaining nine have until Aug. 23 to find another position on campus. The restructuring has created several new posts, and ISU policy guarantees managers - for a period of time - will consider applications from employees who have been cut.

'If they don't apply for and get hired for other jobs, they are laid off,” McCarroll said.

The process for the unionized workers is not so simple.

Union officials told The Gazette they're upset with the restructuring - calling it 'privatization at its worst” and criticized the decision to keep employees in a room for weeks. Danny Homan - president of AFSCME Council 61, which represents the unionized workers - said he's glad the employees accepted the option to stay home, once it became available.

'We're still upset over this situation, and we still are reviewing what are options are,” he said.

Iowa State's ITS restructuring involves contract workers filling in gaps, Homan said.

ISU's McCarroll said the university has not hired any outside entity but confirmed ITS works with firms and, 'There may be overlapping tasks that are being handled.”

'They are doing the work our employees used to do, and we believe that's inappropriate,” Homan said.

'Unfortunately, I believe the end result will involve some employees probably not having a job,” he said, warning that this case is headed toward a grievance or litigation. 'They are going to do what they are going to do and, at some point, I'm going to do what I've got to do.”