Union leader’s stance hurts state workers

By The Sioux City Journal

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Rank-and-file state employees covered by the state's largest employee union should hope Danny Homan takes Gov.-elect Terry Branstad up on his Tuesday offer to renegotiate the two-year labor pact reached in November.

But Homan, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 61, is maintaining a combative stance that strikes us as deeply puzzling.

It doesn't appear Homan has any interest in renegotiating a deal that calls for wage increases ranging from 5 percent to 14 percent over the life of the contract. But that will likely cost hundreds - if not more - low-level state workers their jobs. Simply put, this contract is unsustainable.

Some 70 percent of all state government costs are related to personnel. Some 15 percent of all state costs needs to be cut in order to put Iowa on sound financial footing and avoid tax increases. But cutting 15 percent from the 30 percent of state costs not associated with personnel would be a disaster.

That leaves only one option: Massive layoffs. And it won't be the high-paid administrators and others with union clout that will lose their jobs. Because of seniority rights and rules observed by most unions like AFSCME, it will be frontline, lower-paid workers who will be cast out into the cold. And because those workers don't pull in large paychecks, the state will have to lay more of them off to make ends meet.

Yet, every time this editorial board writes about the greed and cynicism of union leaders, union members come out in force to defend their leadership. It's baffling to us.

The decision by union leaders to trumpet up to a 15 percent pay increase over two years to make themselves look good on the surface really only harms the workers they pretend to protect. The reality is very few people will get those larger raises because they only apply to those who have not reached the full scale. And those are the first people who will lose their jobs when the reckoning comes.

Homan should look to the example being set on the federal level, come back to the bargaining table and reach a settlement that makes sense for all the workers he claims to represent.