Under New Law, Iowa Unions Vote to Recertify

Faculty union advocates in Iowa were worried earlier this year when state legislators passed a law saying that public-sector unions would have to vote, by a two-thirds majority, to recertify their collective bargaining units before the end of every contract. Yet all seven faculty and graduate student bargaining units passed the new threshold for recertification -- most by wide margins, according to information compiled by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College of the City University of New York. (In one case, the faculty union at Iowa Valley Community College was recertified without an election for a year because the college failed to submit a voter eligibility list to the Public Employment Relations Board.) The new law, which otherwise limits the scope of collective bargaining for public employees, faces ongoing legal challenges.