I was given the opportunity to sit on the floor of the Iowa House (thanks to Erik Helland) during tonight’s public forum on House File 2420, which allows unions to collects fees from employees that work in the Executive Branch of the Iowa government to cover the costs of contract bargaining and grievance assistance. It became clear that the new selling title for this bill is “Reasonable Reimbursement”.

In the Iowa House chamber, there were 58 speakers today, 32 in favor and 28 against House File 2420.

Almost every speaker in favor of the bill had little more to say than “everyone benefits, so everyone should pay”. Not much explanation why someone who does not want to be represented by a union has to pay the union, and why people should be forced to pay to have a job. There was some attempt to explain why unions shouldn’t just drop representing non-members. If I had to sit and listen to just all of the speakers in favor of the bill, I probably would have fallen asleep by the time it was half over due to the redundancy. Mind you, I’m glad that all of those speakers took the time to come and speak, but the argument is pretty simple and not compelling (at least not to me).

Maggie Martin probably stated the supporter’s position best: “Basically we are putting unions in the position of providing services for free This bill rights that wrong.”

One union leader admitted that the ultimate goal is repeal of Right to Work even though such a repeal doesn’t “resonate with Iowans”.

Another supporter (John Neiderbach) said: “Read the bill. This is a very modest bill.” As if partly bad isn’t a problem.

Interesting were the number of people who opposed the bill that one would have expected to be in support of it. At least one democrat who is a business owner, one educator, and a retire union member.

The most compelling [...]

Evidently anticipating a challenging public presence (although as of 5:10 PM there are only about 100 people in the Iowa House galleries), Speaker Murphy provided the following list of rules:

Persons signing up to testify will be permitted on the House floor during a public hearing.
To testify, members of the public will be required to enter [...]

I need to apologize that I have been unable, in recent weeks, to keep this blog current for you. As most of you know, I have discontinued my radio show due to the time commitment, and hope to get more writing done as a result. Your kind patience is appreciated. And now…

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At 5:00 PM this afternoon a public forum is scheduled to hear comments on Democrats attempt to tear apart Iowa’s long history as a Right To Work state (House File 2420, formally HSB 702). It will be held in the Iowa House Chamber (details provided by Shane Vander Hart last week). I will be there and will provide updates via Twitter and an updated post later tonight.

This is potentially one of the last great attempts by power-gorged Democrats to rake Iowans over the coals. True, this year’s bill only drops 18,000 Executive Branch employees into the lions’ den, but at a whopping $5.3 Million theft of personal income. This is another example of how our left-thinking leaders (*sigh*) believe they are empowered to redistribute wealth.

Consider, my friends, the fact that the unions that state employees are members of (voluntarily today) exist under the guise of protecting those employees from the very government that is now handing them (the unions) the keys to the state treasury.

And this is YOUR MONEY that is [...]

From Iowa House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen’s office:

(DES MOINES)—Today in the House Labor committee, Democrats assigned a bill which would gut Iowa’s right to work law. House Study Bill 702 is an attempt by House Democrats to take away Iowans’ choice to join a union.

Iowa’s right to work law guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join, not join or pay any fees to a labor union. Iowa’s right to work law has been in place since 1947. This bill is a direct attack on hard-working Iowans’ liberties.

“It is simply wrong to tell someone they must give their hard-earned dollars to an organization they have chosen not to be a member of,” said House Republican Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). “A union is not forced to represent non-members. They choose forced monopoly bargaining and now they want to force payment for providing those unwanted services.”

Under the Democrats’ plan, public employees who are non-union would be forced to pay a fee to the union as a condition of their employment, thus completely gutting Iowa’s right to work law.

We’ve been waiting for this. Here’s link to the bill. Democrats tried to do this last year (it was called “Fair Share” then), and the year before, and, oh wait, they’ve been trying to rip out Right To Work for over fifty years! Representative Ralph Watts (R – District 47) wrote this piece a year ago, and is still just as relevant today:

Nothing Fair about Fair Share

Two years ago, after the Democrats took over the Governor’s office, the State Senate and the State House, we started getting more labor bills [...]

Read The Complete Article

Tags: Fair Share, Kraig Paulsen, Ralph Watts, Right To Work