Lang
10/28/20
Johnson County employees recently overwhelmingly voted to recertify their union, but a rule enacted by Iowa’s Republican legislature will force it to dissolve anyway.
PPME Local 2003 had represented 69 employees representing non-supervisory employees of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, Recorder, Treasurer, Attorney, Data Processing, Physical Plant, Planning and Zoning and Public Health Departments.
A new state law requires unions to recertify every two years. A majority of union members, not just those participating in the vote, need to approve for the union to be recertified. A non-vote by a union member counts as a no.
PPME members had between October 13th and 27th to cast their ballots. The final vote was 25-1 in favor of retaining the union, but the new law counts the 43 unreturned ballots as “no” votes, making the vote technically 44-25 against keeping the union.
Out of the approximately 300 Iowa unions forced to hold recertification votes, only about 20 failed to reach 50% approval.