Union busting? Iowa GOP is coming close [View all]

Chants about “union busting” echoed through the Iowa Capitol this week as Republican lawmakers unveiled legislation to gut collective bargaining for most public employees.

It’s not union busting, responded Rep. Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada. If Republicans wanted to do that, he said, they would just “rip Chapter 20 right out of the code book.”

Chapter 20 is the main law that governs the relationship between government employers and their union workers.

That raises the question, why wouldn’t Republican legislators simply repeal collective bargaining? After all, they are proposing to remove virtually every aspect of a contract from the reach of negotiation except base wages.

Read more: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/kathie-obradovich/2017/02/08/obradovich-union-busting-iowa-gop-coming-close/97657950/