Labor protests spread to Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa--On March 7, more than 2,000 people from across Iowa mobilized at the Iowa state Capitol to rally in support of workers' rights and protest austerity measures proposed by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.

The mass workers' justice rally on March 7, organized by the Iowa Federation of Labor, was not the first this year in Iowa.

On February 26, more than 500 people attended a MoveOn.org rally at the statehouse, and on February 22, more than 1,000 public- and private-sector workers representing the Iowa Federation of Labor, various AFL-CIO locals, United Electrical Workers, United Auto Workers, AFSCME, United Food and Commercial Workers, and other labor unions from across Iowa rallied at the capitol in Des Moines.

"This is not an assault on public workers," Ken Sagar, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, told the Associated Press. "This is an assault on the middle class. We don't just make widgets, we don't just provide services, we enable people to have a decent life."

The three labor union solidarity rallies followed a January 25 protest of budget cuts at the Iowa state Capitol organized by the community power organization Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) that was attended by more than 300 family farmers, retirees, clergy, immigrants and other everyday people.

Iowa CCI members have argued for common-sense alternatives to Branstad's corporate agenda of balancing the budget on the backs of hard-working Iowa families. These solutions include combined corporate reporting to close tax loopholes and force out-of-state corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

"The assault on public employee unions is part of a deliberate right-wing strategy to shift the blame for the recession away from the big banks that crashed the economy and the multinational corporations that don't pay their fair share of taxes," said Garry Klicker, an Iowa CCI member, small business owner and independent livestock farmer from Bloomfield.

"They caused this crisis, they should have to pay for it." Klicker's comments were made in a labor solidarity press statement released by Iowa CCI members on February 22.

IN NOVEMBER, Iowans sent incumbent Democratic Iowa Gov. Chet Culver home, and elected former four-term Republican Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad back into office for another term following after a 10-year hiatus.

Branstad's campaign was financed by the largest corporate agribusiness and big-moneyed special-interest groups in the state of Iowa, and he moved quickly once inaugurated to end project labor agreements and voting rights for felons. He has also proposed an ambitious "austerity" agenda to deregulate factory farms, cut corporate taxes, privatize economic development, repeal collective bargaining and slash vital public services.

Iowa's unemployment rate is slightly below the national average, and the state's budget difficulties are more manageable than in some other states, in part because of Iowa's strong agribusiness economy and record-high prices for grain and livestock (themselves caused by big bank speculation on commodities).

But while Iowa's agribusiness economy has been great for those at the top, tens of thousands of independent family farmers have been pushed off the land since 1995--during Branstad's last term in office, when he rolled out the welcome mat to the factory farm industry in the state.

Although Iowa currently has a Republican in the governor's mansion and a Republican-controlled House, Democrats hold a slim majority in the Iowa Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal--hardly a progressive populist champion by any measure--has vowed to block attempts to repeal collective bargaining or the state's marriage equality law.

Whether that's true, and whether or not the slim Democratic majority in the Iowa Senate will block the rest of Branstad's corporate agenda, will hinge on the ability of everyday Iowans, and the labor unions and community organizations under their direct democratic control, to continue pushing for grassroots, progressive social change from below.