Members of UE's Iowa locals are involved in a special election that will decide the balance of power in the Iowa State Senate, and likely determine the future of collective bargaining rights in the state.
Back in March, the Republican-controlled Iowa House of Representatives, with the backing of Republican Governor Terry Branstad, passed an anti-union bill similar to the union-busting legislation in Wisconsin. But because Democrats held a one-seat majority in the State Senate, the bill was stopped in its tracks there.
In September, Governor Branstad found a way to remove one of those Democratic senators. He offered a job with the state utility commission to State Senator Swati Dandekar. Dandekar had been an inconsistent ally of working people, and her resignation from the senate to take the utility commission job puts control of the senate up for grabs.
So a lot is at stake on November 8 in the special election to fill the seat for 18th State Senate District (located in eastern Iowa, centered in the city of Marion.) That's why some two dozen members and retirees of UE Locals 893 and 896 have done volunteer campaign work for Liz Mathis, the Democratic candidate running against Republican Cindy Golding. Golding is fully on-board with the Republican Party's anti-worker agenda, and if elected she is expected to be the deciding vote to take away the rights of Iowa public employees, including the members of Locals 893 and 896.
UE volunteers have been going door-to-door talking to voters, and working on get-out-the-vote efforts among UE members, UE retirees, and other residents of the district. Along with the effort in Ohio to repeal anti-union legislation through the "Vote NO on Issue 2" campaign, the election in Iowa Senate District 18 will be critically important to the future of workers' rights in the U.S.