Miner Queries | Cherie Miner
Iowa has been getting quite a bit of national press lately, and not in a good way.
Of course, we can always count on Rep. Steve King to incite hate on the national stage, in the process tarring our entire state. But now we’re also getting press thanks to our one-party state government and the corporate-written legislation they are shoving through this session.
After gutting Iowa’s Chapter 20 collective bargaining in February, as well as higher education funding, the New York Times ran an op-ed by two graduate students in University of Iowa’s prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop titled, “How Iowa Republicans are Threatening Nurses, Teachers and Poets.”
As Nicolas Medina Mora and Rebecca Zweig point out, cutting benefits and pay would likely force them to work additional jobs and reduce the quality of writing and teaching they do at the university. It would also discourage talented writers from enrolling in the program, and thus impoverish our state’s education system further.
Mora and Zweig also reference the Republican carve-out to protect the benefits of policemen and firefighters, noting that while these employees provide vital community services, so do teachers and nurses.
One of the arguments made to justify changes to Iowa’s collective bargaining was to give local authorities more control. However, less than a week later, the New York Times editorial board pointed out the irony of that claim in an op-ed titled “Iowa’s GOP Statehouse Shows the Locals Who’s Boss.”
As the Times editors observe, Republicans like to “wax poetic” about the wisdom of local control. Yet after gaining control of both legislative houses (in addition to the governor’s office), “home rule is becoming a casualty of the sort of political triumphalism that President Trump is brandishing in Washington.” In this instance, Iowa legislators voted to overturn four local authorities’ decision to raise the minimum wage.
Ironically, after that Republicans made a push to give home rule to school districts, the only governing entity in Iowa without it.
And although Iowa unions expected a tough legislative session, an April 3 Omaha World Herald article describes it as “worse than expected.”
However, the article quoted Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix saying, “Republicans were delivering on campaign promises and carrying out the will of constituents.” Really?
It also quoted Matt Everson, Iowa director of the National Federation of Independent Business, who opined that small businesses needed these actions to rein in costs “because it allows them to grow and ultimately add employees.”
But will it? Or will it just increase Iowa’s “brain drain?” We’ve already had a Minnesota superintendent crowing about recruiting Iowa teachers. Underfunding and eroding the quality of Iowa’s schools won’t attract people to our state. Offering jobs with low wages and no benefits won’t attract workers to Iowa. And it will further gut our rural communities.
Who will work for these employers?
Legislators might want to think about who actually votes. Workers cast votes, not the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) or its corporate members.
Workers, students and retirees – it’s time to take names.
Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.