Board of Regents reprimanded for bad faith bargaining
Hunter
6/18/19
The Iowa Public Relations Employment Board has issued a reprimand to the state’s Board of Regents for their dealings with unions at the University of Iowa and at UNI.
According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the reprimands stem from 2017, when the state legislature was moving to strip collective bargaining rights from unions for public employees and allowing only base wages to be negotiated for.
The Campaign to Organize Graduate Students at the UI and UNI’s United Faculty union accused the Regents of delaying tactics so that the contracts up for renewal could be negotiated in the Regents favor.
In late January of that year, the chief negotiator for the Regents told COGS that negotiations would cease until the subsequent passage of the changes to the Iowa Code.
The decision from the Public Relations Employment Board called their stall tactics “demonstrates a lack of commitment to the process,” and added that pending legislation was no excuse to delay or refuse to engage in the collective bargaining process.
The reprimand does not undo what has been done, but could possibly lead to the unions filing legal action. The ruling does order the regents to cease and desist any further violations and to post notices of their violations once students return for the traditional start of the school year.