Local 896-COGS Successfully Negotiates Wages, Defends Academic Freedom

Negotiating a wage increase with an employer is one of the most common things that most union locals do. But since an anti-union law went into effect eight years ago, UE Local 896-Campaign to Organize Graduate Students, which represents 2,000 graduate workers at the University of Iowa, has been forced to simply accept the maximum arbitration award mandated by that law — as has every other union which bargains with the state’s Board of Regents, which governs the Iowa’s higher education system.

Earlier this year, Local 896-COGS became the first union to successfully negotiate a raise above that state-mandated maximum arbitration award with the Board of Regents. By mobilizing their members, they were able to convince the Board to agree to wage increases of three percent in each year of their two-year contract, 11 percent higher than the maximum 2.7 percent per year they could have won in arbitration. “It was a big deal,” said Local 896 Press and Publicity Chair Anne Moore, noting that Local 896 hopes to use this precedent to further push the boundaries of what they can achieve in Iowa’s hostile legal environment.

Anti-Union Law Gives Employers No Incentive to Negotiate

In 2017, as soon as Republicans gained majorities in both houses of the state legislature, they passed one of the most restrictive public-sector collective bargaining laws in the country. In addition to requiring onerous “recertification” elections every two years and prohibiting dues checkoff, the law severely limits what unions can do at the bargaining table. Bargaining over many subjects, including healthcare, is prohibited entirely, and unions are allowed to take only one subject — base wages — to arbitration. Arbitration awards are capped at either three percent or the consumer price index increase for that year, whichever is lower.

As public-sector workers in Iowa are also prohibited from striking, employers have little incentive to bargain seriously. Some UE locals that represent workers at smaller public-sector employers like school districts, where local officials are directly accountable to their communities, have been able to maintain their contract language and engage in real negotiations. However, the Board of Regents are statewide political appointees, and have heretofore refused to bargain seriously with Local 896.

Despite these legal restrictions, Local 896 has consistently mobilized its members to demand more. This year, Moore said, “We really pushed a big presence at the open-bargaining first session. … We met in the hallway, packed the bargaining room itself, livestreamed it, just lined the halls outside of it.” (Iowa law requires the first bargaining session to be open to the public.)

The local continued to mobilize members at the subsequent closed bargaining session, holding a silent grade-in outside of the room (and getting kicked out of the building on flimsy legal pretexts). They held a rally outside of UI President Barbara Wilson’s office and delivered hand-written postcards from members, asking her to tell the Board of Regents to give graduate workers a raise, and mobilized their members and supporters to flood the Board with calls, faxes, and emails.

Union Defeats Board of Regents Proposal Limiting Academic Freedom

In the months following their successful negotiations, Local 896 caught wind of the fact that the Board of Regents was planning to implement a policy that would have banned any so-called “DEI and CRT content” — i.e., any mention of racial or gender injustice — from any required course at the university. Moore called the policy a “really insidious threat to academic freedom,” and noted that some of the effects of the policy, such as preventing the medical school from teaching about racial disparities in health, would conflict with national accreditation requirements. The policy was essentially the same as a bill which was introduced in the state legislature, but did not pass.

Local 896 members and allies showed up in force to the Board’s summer meeting, filling the public comment period with speakers and holding a rally outside. After the Board announced that they would postpone their vote on the policy, Local 896 launched an email campaign, doing public outreach at farmers markets and other community events asking community members to email the Board their concerns about the policy. When the Board met again, they approved a revised version which “took the teeth out of the policy,” according to Moore.

Local 896-COGS members at the Board of Regents meeting last summer.

“A great lesson”

An article published in the local’s newsletter after the defeat of the Board policy called the victory “a huge win,” and pointed out that it “shows us that the Board of Regents is not an unstoppable opponent when we exert force. … This isn’t the end of our fight, but it’s a great lesson for grad students like us, for faculty, and for the community.”

The right wing has “really been using Iowa as the testing ground for these anti-DEI, anti-higher ed policies,” said Moore. “There’s a lot to learn from what is happening in Iowa.”

The Local 896-COGS negotiating committee consisted of President Cary Stough, Chief Campus Steward Amanda Kozar, Area Stewards Gage Liddiard, Mahdi Feyz Karimlou, Olivia Jones, and Regina Napolitano, and At-large Bargaining and Organizing Rep Jacob Payne. They were assisted by International Representative Greg Cross.