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With the 2010 General Assembly set to gavel into session next week and more budget cuts on the horizon, organized labor has shifted its focus to ensuring lawmakers make sound budget decision and avoid massive layoffs.

Iowa’s labor unions have stepped up and made sacrifices in order to help the state get past record deficits, and now it’s time for lawmakers to look at the tax code, two prominent labor leaders said.
During a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 61 [...]

Members of Iowa largest labor union have approved contract concessions that will avoid nearly 500 layoffs.

The union representing state troopers and game wardens has reached an agreement with the state aimed at saving 43 jobs, Gov. Chet Culver announced Tuesday.

Iowa’s largest union has reached a tentative agreement with the state, avoiding 479 layoffs that could have resulted from Gov. Chet Culver’s 10 percent budget cut ordered last month, which many feared would impact public safety.

Iowa should privatize its prison system in order to alleviate budget problems, a conservative watchdog group said Monday.
Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief, said the privatization of Iowa’s prisons would result in many positive benefits, from making communities safer to minimizing inefficiencies. But the biggest benefit would be cost savings, he said.

Two Republican legislators and the state’s largest labor union are calling on the University of Iowa to cancel a planned trip to the Disney Institute in Orlando, Fla., saying the price tag is too high at a time when the state is facing huge budget deficits.

Instead of resorting to layoffs to meet Gov. Chet Culver’s 10 percent across-the-board budget cuts, state government should implement an employee pay reduction, Iowa Tax Relief President Ed Failor Jr. said Monday.

After my report earlier today about the outlook for organized labor going into 2010, one unanswered political question remains: After Democratic majorities failed to move key components of organized labor’s agenda from 2007 to 2009, will national labor groups continue to direct resources to Iowa Democrats, or will they move on to other states where [...]

“I like to think that good legislation gets passed regardless of whether it is an election year or not,” said Marcia Nichols, political and legislative director for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Iowa Council 61.