Oh Yes: On Way Out The Door, Democratic Iowa Governor Hands Government Employee Union Big Raise, Without Negotiating, Just Giving Them Their First Demand

Thanks to AmishDude. This is actually old-ish news by now but maybe it was missed in the Thanksgiving holiday.

Governor-Elect Branstadt wants to un-ink the quickly-inked payoff, but I'm not sure there's a legal way to do that.

“The president is now asking that the federal employees accept a freeze. I guess my feeling would be to ask the union to reopen negotiations and consider doing something similar. I think it’s only fair,” Branstad said in an interview this morning.

“We believe in the Obama plan,” added David Roederer, who will head Branstad’s Department of Management.

Branstad is still upset that Gov. Chet Culver accepted the contract with the American Association of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, without consulting the incoming governor.

“This is unprecedented. I mean, there was no negotiations. Since we’ve had collective bargaining, there’s always been negotiations. You don’t just accept the union’s first demand,” Branstad said. “We were just dumbfounded that he would do this.”

"A rare move:"

In a rare move Governor Culver accepted AFSCME's contract proposal as submitted and with no negotiation.

Cost to Iowa: $103.5 million in the first year of raises alone.

The incoming, new speaker of the Iowa House has a way to avoid such costs: layoffs.

Oh, and I'm sure this is perfectly irrelevant: the union endorsed Culver.

posted by Ace at 05:54 PM

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