When such discrimination occurs, Iowa laws should provide just causes of action and remedies.

We support the following changes to the Iowa Civil Rights law:

• Conform the Iowa Civil Rights Act to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1991, allowing jury trials and punitive damages
• Give complainants the direct right to sue without a waiting period in the administrative agency
• Allow class actions to be filed under the statute
• Add a state Equal Pay Act and Fair Pay Act
• Strengthen the disability in employment provisions
• Add sexual orientation and gender identity as an affected class
• Preserve the right to all contractual and statutory remedies

The right of workers to choose to join unions is a fundamental right. The law must ensure that workers who exercise their freedom to join a union have a meaningful right to bargain that results in a contract on fair terms. Lawbreakers must be held accountable for their conduct, with remedies and penalties commensurate with the offense, so that labor law violations are dealt with as seriously as violation of employment discrimination, antitrust and environmental laws.

Iowa’s economic development efforts need to focus on those economic activities that promote a better quality of life for Iowans and at the same time encourage new firms to come to Iowa and existing firms to expand in Iowa.

For many years Iowa has benefited from an energy system that has provided reliable, affordable electric power to its consumers. Growing consumption, along with increasing pressure to change our system through restructuring or deregulation challenges us to define our energy future in terms of recommended state policy, goals and the procedure to meet those goals. To make these determinations, we must first have a thorough assessment of where we are today.

This assessment must include the following issues:

• Reliability of the system, including siting of generation, generation capacity, transmission line maintenance and repair, power plant maintenance and repair, acceptable outage durations, staffing levels, worker training and reporting requirements;

• Rule-making that addresses such issues as power quality, response times, cross-subsidization and consumer rights and protections;

• Goal-setting that considers such things as economic development, renewable energy, energy efficiency, consumer satisfaction and state-to-state comparisons;

• Establishment of a source for a public fund to be used for low-income energy assistance, energy efficiency and development of renewable energy resources; and

• Recommended changes and procedures to meet determined goals.

Iowa’s electric utility industry must continue to meet the needs of Iowa customers by blending the development and maintenance of safe, reliable and sufficient electric generation and transmission resources with the promotion of energy conservation.

The Federation supports health care reform that extends access to affordable, quality health care to all Iowans.

• A Patients’ Bill of Rights that contains basic consumer protections, including access to specialists when needed, a definition of medical necessity independent of insurance company definition and the right to sue insurance companies and HMOs who are responsible for bad decisions.

• Affordable Prescription Drugs for seniors and uninsured families. Prescription drugs have grown increasingly important as a means to prevent and treat disease, but drug prices are out of control, rising faster than any other health care cost and twice as fast as the rate of inflation. The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO supports legislation that makes prescription drugs more affordable and accessible to those who have little or no prescription drug insurance.

• Safe staffing ratios in health care facilities and nursing homes to ensure that patients get the care they need.

• Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). These accounts will benefit primarily healthy, wealthy individuals and will neither control costs nor enhance the quality of care. MSAs may provide an incentive to participants to postpone or deny themselves necessary health care and could drive up the cost of health insurance.

• Limits on medical malpractice lawsuits. Medical negligence cannot be reduced by restricting consumers’ legal rights. In fact, the threat of lawsuit may force providers to act more responsibly. Arbitrary limits tend to deny proper compensation for those who are harmed the most.

The Federation supports:

• Provision of positive learning and training experiences needed by welfare recipients to reach the goal of permanent, unsubsidized employment. We encourage welfare agencies to assess the skills, interests and abilities of welfare recipients and to develop educational programs that will fit the needs of the employees.

• Funding for high-quality child care to make it more available and affordable for Iowa’s working families and provide living wages for child care providers. More specific proposals include:

• Greatly increased government funding for child care to meet the goals of affordability, accessibility and quality, particularly ensuring quality child care services to low-income families and including child subsidies for every Iowa family below 85% of the state median income.

• Increases in the wages of child care workers, along with educational opportunities and requirements to the end that child care work becomes a respected and well-compensated career option. Government action on reimbursement rates is needed to assure that higher wages for child care workers do not translate into unaffordable child care for parents and do translate into high quality care for children.

• Upgrading of, and more frequent and more consistent monitoring and enforcement of child care standards by state and local governments.

• Continued emphasis in public discussion and government policy on addressing the child care crisis, with support for development of a comprehensive single point of entry system for family support, child care, early education and school-age care.

• Adequate funding for transportation needs.

• Health care coverage for low wage workers.

• Workplace policies that apply equally to welfare recipients, including equal treatment with regard to wages, benefits and working conditions. Welfare workers who are forced to "work off" their checks are often expected to do the same work as other employees, but for a fraction of their pay, with no sick leave, no vacations, no pensions or other benefits. This is unacceptable.

• Affordable housing. Iowa should dedicate real estate transfer tax revenue for local housing programs. These funds would be controlled at the local level and used to meet the low- and moderate-income housing needs of that area.

• Increased funding for Iowa’s Emergency Assistance Program (EAP). Iowa’s EAP provides a maximum grant of $500 once in any 12-month period to low-income families with children to pay for rent and/or utilities, essential home repair, or a mortgage payment. This grant is inadequate. Further, the current EAP appropriation of less than $2.8 million, which is expected to run out within six months of when the funds became available, is also inadequate.

• Adequate funding for Legal Services Programs that help low-income Iowans to meet their most critical and basic needs for food, shelter, health care and freedom from abuse.

The state of Iowa is home to an increasing number of immigrants. Immigrants have contributed much to our society and our economy. Many Iowans want to relax immigration rules to allow for the entry of more foreign workers to ease the so-called "labor shortage."

If there is a documented need for additional workers that cannot be filled by the current workforce and the jobs that are available are decent jobs, this is a worthy idea. However, we oppose bringing in workers to fill low-wage, low-benefit jobs or to flood low-end jobs to keep wages low. Iowa should promote living wage jobs and increased worker protections such as comparable pay, health and safety protections and the right to organize.

All workers, including immigrants, must be provided information on their rights and how to protect them, including their right to form and join unions; file complaints against illegal and unfair treatment without fear or reprisal; receive unemployment insurance, disability insurance and workers’ compensation benefits.

The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO opposes "English Only" laws. "English Only" laws are a short-sighted and bigoted effort by some that would only result in discrimination and hinder the competitiveness of the United States in a global economy. Isolating immigrants who have not yet learned English will not lead to more effective integration, but only to exploitation and discrimination. Rather than condemn immigrants for the language they speak, we should provide immigrants the opportunity to learn English without being harassed and alienated by "English Only" laws.

Some workers, who are, for all intents and purposes, employees, are treated as if they are independent contractors. As a result, the employer is freed from the obligation to provide unemployment and workers’ compensation to them. Legislation should be passed that reflects the distinction between employees and independent contractors and prohibits employer avoidance of their obligations.

The Federation encourages programs that educate and train inmates to re-enter society and become productive citizens. Such programs must comply with prevailing wage requirements, have no adverse impact upon public or private sector workers and result in no displacement of employed workers.

Private firms have little or no public accountability and are less responsive to citizen needs. They are motivated to make profits rather than deliver high quality services. There is no evidence to indicate that privatization results in lower costs.

Contract employers traditionally pay poor wages and benefits which are not sufficient to raise and support a family. As a result, the state may have to provide assistance for such

low-income workers, as well as suffer a decrease in tax revenue. Corruption, scandal and wasteful management have all become associated with private firms providing public services.

This legislation would allow unions (public and private) and employers (public and private) in a collective bargaining setting to bargain about and implement a union security clause in the labor agreement.

Understanding Right To Work

Every worker in the state of Iowa should be provided safe and healthy working conditions. Employees should not suffer declining health, declining functional capacity or shorter life expectancy due to their work experience. It is inexcusable that we are in the bottom tier of states in the ratio of inspectors to workers. There are currently only enough OSHA inspectors to routinely inspect Iowa workplaces once every 164 years. This lack of enforcement allows employers to violate accepted safety and health standards with little or no risk of being sanctioned. We support Iowa OSHA, whose goals include reducing injuries and illnesses in the workplace. To help reach those goals, the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO supports the following:

• The fulfillment by the State of Iowa of its obligation to provide staffing for enforcement personnel as well as providing adequate clerical, technical, supervisory and administrative staff at levels that will ensure the safety and well-being of Iowa workers.

That is, as income increases, the percentage of that income paid in taxes should also increase. The Iowa tax system is not progressive. It is regressive. That is, if one compares the total amount paid in income tax, sales tax and property tax as a percentage of income, the greater the income, the less the percentage of that income that is paid in taxes.

Families in the lowest income class pay more, in percentage terms, than do the richest Iowans. This result is offensive to most civilized people in that the poor and middle class are forced to pay more than the rich. It is also an ineffective revenue strategy in that those whose income and wealth have increased the most – the rich – pay less.

It should be noted that changes made in Iowa taxes from 1992-98 have made the tax system more regressive. An Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy study, Choices for Iowa: Building a Better Tax System, found that the 1992 state sales tax hike currently raises the same amount of revenue as has been cut in personal income taxes since then. The ’92 tax increase, however, hit middle- and low-income families the hardest, whereas the recent income tax cuts have been most generous to the well-off. The net effect has been a tax cut for the richest 20% of taxpayers and a tax hike on the middle- and low-income families of the bottom 60%.

A number of changes could be made that would make Iowa taxes more progressive. The Federation supports:

• Eliminating or limiting federal deductibility. Current Iowa tax law allows a deduction of federal taxes paid in calculating Iowa income;

• Instituting income-based sales tax credits and/or property tax credits;

• Instituting an earned income tax credit for low and moderate income families;

• Tying homestead credit to income so that persons with income above, for example, $100,000 are no longer eligible for the exemption.

Position: The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO opposes income taxes that treat one source of income differently than another. Tax policy should be based on the level of income rather than the source of income. Thus, we are opposed to exempting pension and Social Security income from income tax without regard to the total income of the individual. Such exemptions are designed to benefit very highly paid pensioners and would be of little or no benefit to the average Iowa retiree.

The Federation opposes local option sales taxes because they are regressive. We recognize, however, that there is a need for extra revenue and thus support legislation that would enable a locality to levy a local option income tax. We support state money for local school infrastructure needs. Further, we support efforts to make the sales tax less regressive by exempting essentials from the local option sales tax base and by implementing a sales tax credit for low- and middle-income Iowans.

This tax should not be significantly changed as it is relatively progressive and does not cause an exodus of Iowa residents.

The role of our elected representatives at the state level is, on behalf of the citizens who elected them, to determine the policies and programs in which the state will engage, and to levy the taxes to fund these policies and programs. Proposals to use a referendum to set taxes strip the Legislature of its constitutional responsibility in a representative democracy. The outcomes of such referenda hinge entirely on the ability of interest groups to spend massive sums of money to influence citizen voting decisions through the technology of modern communications, thereby undermining the practice of direct democracy such referenda are designed to promote.

The amount of money in Iowa’s unemployment trust fund is currently over $841 million. Employers continue to contribute at the lowest rate available, yet the fund continues to rise. At the same time, less than half of unemployed Iowans are receiving benefits.

Thousands of individuals who are totally or partially unemployed through no fault of their own are denied unemployment benefits due to technical regulations.

Such legislation includes:

• Changing the base period earnings requirement. Currently, a worker’s base period earnings must be 1-1/4 times the high quarter earnings.

• Backdating job insurance claims to the last week of the prior quarter if the individual lacks qualifying wages in the current quarter.

Position: The Federation supports extension of unemployment benefits to victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a serious problem, and many victims stay in abusive relationships because of economic pressures. To escape, the victim may be forced to change jobs and could suffer a period of unemployment. If this happens, the worker should have the right to collect unemployment compensation.

The Iowa minimum wage should be increased to at least $6.15 per hour and indexed to future increases in the cost of living. However, this wage is not adequate to sustain a living. A "living wage" would pay a worker enough to equal the poverty level for a family of four, indexed for inflation, plus health insurance. The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO supports legislation that would require government contractors to pay their workers a living wage as a condition of all contracts with private service providers.

• Separating the Workers’ Compensation premium into two parts: one part based on medical costs and the other part based on wage replacement. Workers’ Compensation premiums are wage-based. Yet nearly one half of the cost of Workers’ Compensation is medical care. The cost of medical care is the same regardless of the wage rate. Only wage replacement costs are variable. The current system discriminates in favor of low wage employers. Thus, the high wage employers actually subsidize the low wage employers’ medical costs. A two-part premium would remove this inequity.

• Employee choice of doctor. A basic tenet of adequate health care is the right of individuals to choose their medical providers. This choice provides faith in the medical provider and often leads to quicker recovery. Current Iowa law gives the employer the choice of provider for an injured worker. This eliminates patient faith as well as raises questions about the loyalties of the medical provider.

• Legislation that will prevent the release of workers’ compensation records to firms which blacklist workers and appropriate penalties in the event workers’ medical privacy rights are violated. There is a growing "industry" of for-profit information-gathering firms that collect workers’ compensation claims records, including medical information and sell it to employers for "screening purposes." Certain firms have been obtaining workers’ compensation records from the state of Iowa and using them to blacklist Iowa workers.

• Enactment of legislation that provides for reasonable, but specific, time frames within which workers’ compensation cases must be decided. There is an increasing backlog of cases resulting in delays that stretch from months into years, "starving out" sick and injured workers, who, out of necessity, are forced to settle for less than their rightful benefits under the workers’ compensation laws.

• Development of a program of vocational rehabilitation that provides adequate compensation for injured workers while undergoing rehabilitation and that results in meaningful employment for injured workers who complete the program.

Limit employment at will doctrine so that workers have access to courts for adjudication of discharge cases.