Faculty rights in jeOpardy
Earlier today, State Representative Bob Kressig informed me that Republican majorities in both the House and Senate enacted “time certain” constraints on the vote on Chapter 20 bill. The House will vote at noon. The senate will vote at 2:00 p.m.. I believe this is the first time in the history of the Iowa Senate a time certain constrain has been placed on the vote for a bill.
At UF’s request, Senator Jeff Danielson and Representative Kressig placed amendments on each bill that would have exempted regent’s employees. I made a strong effort to persuade Representative Walt Rogers to support the amendment. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, he has voted against it.
After the bill becomes law, the current contract will remain in place until June 30, 2017. After that date, a new, significantly delimited contract, will go into effect for 2017-2019. On Monday, the UF and board’s bargaining team will meet for negotiations (mediated by the Iowa Public Employee Board) to pursue an agreement on those items we are able to bargain over based on the new law.
United Faculty recently filed a Prohibited Practice Complaint against the board for bad faith bargaining (surprisingly the House and Senate majorities did not legalize bad faith bargaining). The basis of the complaint is that the board refused to negotiate until the Chapter 20 legislation moved forward.
Finally, public employee unions are preparing civil litigation against the new Chapter 20 bill. I expect United Faculty will join that effort.
Onward,
