Ten months after the state Board of Regents filed a lawsuit against the Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS) at the University of Iowa last July, a judge found the regents and the UI had bargained in bad faith prior to the lawsuit.

“The presiding judge called the UI’s actions `a reckless disregard for contract law,’” Gwen Gruber, who was president of COGS during the 2007-2008 academic school year, told the Iowa Independent during a phone interview. “We were pretty confident PERB [Public Employee Relations Board] rule in our favor. We had pretty strong evidence, namely a memo from Kevin Ward [UI Executive Director of Human Resources] stating the UI wasn’t going to follow that portion of the contract. The memo was dated four days before the contract-signing date, and they signed the contract anyway.” The Public Employee Relations Board is an Iowa state agency that handles bargaining rights and duties of public employers and employees.An administrative law judge for PERB found on April 24 that the regents, along with the UI, had breached the code when negotiating the 2007-09 contract with COGS. The regents were ordered to give bargaining-unit information to the union and to post a notice to university employees informing them of the violation.After the contract had been signed by both parties in March 2007, the regents filed a lawsuit against COGS in July. The lawsuit attempted to vacate a portion of the 2007-2008 contract but was dismissed in December by Judge Douglas Russell in Johnson County, who said the regents had failed to allow the administrative and arbitration processes to run their course.

“We are very pleased that Judge Russell agreed with our position and dismissed this frivolous lawsuit by the Board of Regents,” Gruber told the Iowa Independent in December.  “Judge Russell’s ruling affirms our contention that this lawsuit was nothing more than a union-busting effort by the Board of Regents.  It’s time for the regents to abide by their agreement with the union and quit wasting taxpayers’ money on these shenanigans.”

The regents’ lawsuit alleged that the Family and Educational Records Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal law protecting student educational records, prevented them from releasing employment information to COGS as required by the 2007-09 contract. Concurrent with the filing of the lawsuit, the University of Iowa stopped abiding by the contract and providing the union with the information as required by the contract.

Before the lawsuit was filed in July, COGS used this monthly information to help monitor and provide services for its collective-bargaining unit, which includes all graduate employees, regardless of whether they are dues-paying members of the student union. More specifically, COGS double-checks to make sure employees are getting paid the right amount.

When the Regents filed their suit and its intent, COGS argued that FERPA is ambiguous on how it is to be applied and that it generally covers protecting education records, not employment records. “All the information we’re asking for is employment-related,” Gruber told the Iowa Independent in December. “Our point of view is that FERPA does not apply and the Regents are using a misapplication of this to keep us from effectively representing and defending our members.”

The ruling directs the Board of Regents and COGS to utilize the grievance and arbitration procedure outlined in the 2007-09 contract as well as the dispute resolution procedures found under the purview of the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). COGS has continued to proceed through these dispute resolution procedures despite the regents’ failed legal maneuvering.

In regard to the Johnson County District Court’s decision in December, the UI has filed an appeal with the Iowa Supreme Court. “The appeal is very strange to me, because the UI is appealing the decision whether or not to send the case to PERB and arbitration, but by the time the Iowa Supreme Court hears the case, we will have already had decisions rendered by PERB and arbitration,” Gruber said. “From our standpoint, the UI’s actions feel hostile, because they are escalating the situation by putting us in the bad position of having to spend more money on hiring an Iowa labor-law attorney.

“We feel this is completely unnecessary, especially since the district court judge sent the grievance back to PERB and arbitration, which is where the contract disputes should have been heard and resolved in the first place — not the courts, which serves as the last resolve,” Gruber said. “It feels as if they are trying to wear us out before we go into bargaining this fall.”

Despite the lawsuits, rendered decisions, and subsequent tensions that have developed between the regents and UI over the past year, Gruber remains optimistic about next year. “We’re hoping the new regents will bring about some changes on the UI side of the bargaining table this fall,” Gruber said. “We’ve also received support from our local elected officials and we hope to put these issues behind us and move on. We prefer more of a negotiating level as opposed to handling grievances at the legal level.”

Moreover, Gruber doesn’t sense that a hostile relationship has evolved with the UI. “We haven’t had a lot of grievances filed with the UI in the past,” Gruber said. “President Sally Mason is also interested in chatting with us, once in the fall and once in the spring. Whether she can do anything for us in a definitive way, we don’t know yet. But we are encouraged that she is interested in our issues and wants to hear what we have to say.

COGS, whose formal designation is UE Local 896-COGS, represents 2,600 teaching and research assistants at the University of Iowa.