Midwestern governors trashing state workers’ right to unionize, bargain

PEF members are among a fortunate minority of public employees in the U.S. who have the right to form unions and bargain collectively. And while that trend had begun to pick up steam, it has run up against a strong political backlash in the Midwest.

No sooner did Republicans take over the state houses in Missouri and Indiana in January than they yanked the collective-bargaining rights of their state employees — canceling their contracts and nullifying their union locals. 

Governors Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Matt Blunt of Missouri are both rookies elected in 2004 to lead their states. And they both moved quickly to rescind measures that allowed their states’ employees to form unions and bargain collectively.

Last year, Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher did the same thing. And the bargaining rights of public employees in Iowa and Oklahoma are also threatened.

The U.S. labor movement has been expanding fastest in the public sector in recent years, but this trend could halt that avenue of growth.

Missouri 
Missouri employees had only had collective-bargaining rights since 2001, when the Democratic governor, Bob Holden, used an executive order to pry open the door to unionization. But Blunt, who campaigned on ending that right for state workers, defeated Holden and fulfilled that threat just days after taking office.

Blunt’s action affected approximately 25,000 of Missouri’s 61,000 workers who had joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of PEF’s two international affiliates. 

Indiana
Approximately 24,000 of Indiana’s 35,000 employees had joined unions there, including AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) which is PEF’s other international affiliate, and the International Union of Police Associations. Gov. Daniels had given them no warning of his intent to cancel the bargaining rights they had gained when Gov. Evan Bayh, a Democrat, bestowed it by executive order in 1989. 

Two governors after Bayh had re-issued the executive order, but Daniels wasted no time in trashing it. Year after year, the Republican-dominated Indiana Legislature has blocked or defeated bills to codify the state employees’ collective-bargaining rights.

Oklahoma
A county district court judge has declared the 1-year-old collective bargaining rights law for most municipal employees unconstitutional in Oklahoma. And it is under attack in the Legislature as well. 

Iowa
A Republican legislator has introduced a bill in Iowa to undercut public-sector bargaining there.
— Sherry Halbrook