Quad-City Times, March 25, 2008, Tuesday

Quad-City Times

March 25, 2008, Tuesday

Quad-City Times

Some Q-C officials think bargaining bill is bad idea

Local government officials in the Iowa Quad-Cities are warning a new measure to lay more items on the bargaining table for union negotiations will inevitably lead to an expansion of taxpayer-funded benefits for public workers.

However, union leaders and two specialists on labor relations say those worries are

exaggerated.

For almost a week, the state’s political waters have been roiled by the plan to change the law governing how public bodies and their employee unions bargain.

The House passed the bill last week. The Senate passed it Monday, sending the plan to Gov. Chet Culver for consideration.

Currently, Iowa law requires that such items as wages, hours, insurance, shifts, procedures and overtime be subject for negotiation.

The new law would expand that list of “mandatory” subjects to include such things as class size, staffing levels and retirement systems. Even the choice of a government’s insurance carrier is included.

“To include those kinds of operating protocols within a collective bargaining agreement is just inappropriate, and it could be costly,” said Tim Dose, superintendent of the North Scott School District.

Even traditionally union-friendly political figures in the Quad-Cities objected to the changes.

Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba wrote a letter Monday, saying the measure would have a “significant” effect on city taxpayers.

Greg Jager, Bettendorf’s city attorney and its lead negotiator, said the bill is a recipe for greater taxpayer-funded benefits because arbitrators who settle disputes base their decisions on what other comparable governments are doing and the cost.

“It opens the door,” he said. And once that door is open, he said, the benefits will inevitably grow.

“That which has been bargained for in the past has been set in stone,” Jager said. “You’re only bargaining for how much more is going to be decided on in the upcoming contract.”

Union officials say the idea that benefits won are never surrendered is false.

They say unions have given back on health insurance. And, they say, most other states with public bargaining laws have an expanded list of mandatory subjects.

“It hasn’t bankrupted Illinois or Wisconsin or the 25 other states,” said Brad Hudson, administrative lobbyist for the Iowa State Education Association.

He said giving unions input on class sizes could prevent districts from delaying the hiring of assistants to help with large class sizes.

“It allows us to have some enforcement vehicle,” Hudson said.

Ronald Seeber, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University in New York, said he doubts there would be much difference.

“In a mature system like Iowa, I don’t think it’s going to have a heck of a lot of impact,” he said.

Instead, he said, governments will simply have to base their arguments to an arbitrator more heavily on their ability to pay. That ability to pay and the public’s interest are also areas that must be considered by an arbitrator, labor specialists said.

“They can’t use the law to resist, they have to resist themselves,” Seeber said.

Peter Orazem, the director of the industrial relations program at Iowa State University, said most of these items are already on the table in private-sector negotiations.

There may be gains in areas such as wages, he said, but “in most cases, it’s not going to make that much of a difference.”

The areas where it most likely will be felt, he said, would be in small school districts locked into certain staffing levels but facing shrinking enrollments.

“Where it’s going to make a difference is where management thinks they’re going to have greater demand than they actually do,” he said.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com. Comment on this article at qctimes.com.