State scales back union contract offer

DES MOINES — State negotiators Wednesday offered a scaled-back contract proposal to Iowa’s largest public employees’ union that conformed to a new state law by dropping health care and other fringe benefits in a move the union’s leader angrily said “trashed” 40 years of bargaining.

The state’s eight-page initial offer for a new two-year contract with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61 to take effect July 1 proposed to raise base pay by 1 percent each of the next two fiscal years but deleted most of the other provisions of the current labor agreement.

Janet Phipps, director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and lead state negotiator, said the state’s offer takes into account the law was enacted by the GOP-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Terry Branstad last week. AFSCME has challenged the law in court to block its implementation.

The state’s new offer strikes whole articles of the current collective bargaining agreement with AFSCME that dealt with health and dental benefits, deferred compensation, sick leave, holidays, grievance and layoff procedures, seniority, transfers, hours of work, dues deductions, management rights and reprisal.

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