T-R PHOTO BY JEFF HUTTON An audience member questions legislators, from left, state Sen. Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, state Sen. Jeff Edler, R-State Center, and state Rep. Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, during Saturday’s legislative forum at the Marshalltown Public Library.

With wide-ranging changes to public union collective bargaining signed into law by Gov. Terry Branstad Friday, several union members gathered to voice concerns to area lawmakers Saturday.

“We heard your voices, we made changes to what the original bill was,” said state Sen. Jeff Edler, R-State Center, of House File 291, which passed into law Friday. “I can justify that I think this is what’s best moving forward, I hope you understand it wasn’t an easy decision.”

He, state Rep. Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, and state Sen. Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, engaged members of the public in the community meeting room of the Marshalltown Public Library.

Smith called the new law one part in a series of “attacks” on several groups of Iowans, including children, women, education and public union employees.

“I also led the charge in the House of Representatives against the collective bargaining destroying that occurred this week in the legislature,” the House minority leader said.

Senate Majority Leader Dix was present at the forum despite not being a representative in the Marshalltown area. Edler, a first-year senator, said Dix came to provide valuable insight on procedures from a senate perspective, having been there for seven years.

After voting in favor of HF291 earlier this week, Edler said he could only justify voting the way he did after key amendments were made to the original bill language, specifically regarding just cause for job termination and health insurance.

He said many constituents called him in the days leading up to the bill’s passing, and said the “number one” concern was administrative abuse under the new language, wherein administrators would have been able to let go of public union employees without just cause.

“That’s why I was very big on getting the just cause language back in this bill,” Edler said.

He added that health insurance must be provided in some form under the amendments that passed into the new law.

One of the questions posed to the lawmakers had to do with insurance information to public union members who work for the state.

“There is a group of us that are sitting here that are State of Iowa employees, not county, not city, not municipal,” the Child Support Recovery employee said. “We have no idea what is coming at us in the form of our health insurance or the cost it’s going to be to our families, nothing.”

Dix said, for the time being, federal law says health insurance is provided to public union employees at the state level. However, the woman responded that that law may soon be repealed at the federal level.

“I don’t anticipate that that’s going to be the case, if it is then we may need to revisit it,” Dix said. “Under current law, and what has been the practice for years, the health insurance is not going away.”

Smith disagreed with Dix’s view.

“I think that you have reason to have concern about this,” he said of health insurance. “Gov. Branstad has talked about having a statewide insurance program, which flies against the idea of many of the local communities that have bargained with their local insurance agents.”

A statewide insurance plan was not a part of the new law passed Friday, but Smith said such legislation may soon be coming in the Iowa General Assembly due to the Branstad administration’s interest in implementing such a program.

Edler stressed that the new law gives “flexibility” and “security,” and gives local officials the opportunity to “utilize the tools they now have to create innovative solutions for the future of Iowans.”

Another question asked why 160 state entities at the school, city, county and state levels “rushed to get collective bargaining agreements for the next four years.”

Edler called such action potentially “hasty,” adding such collective bargaining units may have gotten better deals had they waited for the legislation to pass into law.

Both Dix and Edler said there was a high amount of misinformation on what the bill entailed after amendments were made.

The Republican lawmakers said the bill outlined that only wages must legally be negotiated, while other factors could be permissibly negotiated if they could be agreed upon between unions and employers.

Smith argued that the previous collective bargaining system under state law, which stood for over 40 years, had worked well and making significant changes to it was unnecessary and constituted an “attack” on working Iowans.

Other topics discussed

The conversation in the Marshalltown Public Library Saturday morning sometimes deviated from collective bargaining to other issues, related and unrelated.

Topics such as state supplemental aid, or SSA, and corporate tax breaks given by the state to corporations came up at the forum.

“Is there a plan, now, to roll back any of those tax breaks in order to increase the budget for the state?” asked on man in the audience, referring to between $5-600 million in such tax credits.

“I have been opposed to most of those tax credits,” Dix said. “I opposed when I was in the House, I’ve opposed them here in the Senate.”

He said many of the tax credits were adopted as a “symptom” of an “uncompetetive” state tax code to improve the number of businesses coming into the state.

“We want to know that all tax credits are doing what they are supposed to do for the people of Iowa,” Smith said, adding efforts currently under way are taking taxpayer money away from “everyday Iowans” and giving it to out-of-state corporations.

Edler said it may be best to end the tax credits altogether and make changes to the tax code in order to attract businesses to Iowa.

On SSA, one audience member asked why, in the past seven years, the figure hadn’t been given in a timely manner.

Dix said the previously Democrat-controlled Senate caused the delays in SSA figures being passed. However, Smith said the senate decided on an SSA figures in a timely manner before sending it to the Republican-controlled House, where the process was stalled until late in the session.

Dix said Senate Republicans are looking to introduce legislation aimed at making Iowa “more competitive,” with higher-paying jobs and bringing in good workers to the state.

Smith said there will possibly be upcoming legislation involving a school voucher system, which he said will harm many small community school districts across the state. He also said he’s concerned about potential legislation to cut state Department of Education funds.

Edler said he “currently supports” the DoE, and would not like to see its funding cut for the time being.

To keep up with legislation in the Iowa General Assembly, go to https://www.legis.iowa.gov