CIVIL RIGHTS

The Federation supports fair treatment and non-discrimination in employment by public and private sector employers.

A person should be judged on his/her merits and not on characteristics ascribed to a group. When such discrimination occurs, Iowa laws should provide just causes of action and remedies.

The right of workers to choose to join unions is a fundamental right, like other basic rights such as freedom of religion and the right to work free from discrimination based on race, gender or age. But when workers try to form or join a union today, employers nearly always violate workers’ fundamental rights with tactics designed to suppress the freedom to organize. The law must ensure that workers who attempt to 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.

The Federation supports the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on public works construction projects throughout the state of Iowa. PLAs help to ensure that all workers on a project have fair wages and working conditions, as well as representation on the job. We continue to oppose any effort to repeal or diminish the rights of public officials to utilize PLAs for public works construction projects in Iowa.

The Federation supports a revision of the Iowa Public Bidding Statute to require that contractors be responsible to their employees and the community. This would include criteria such as participation in US DOL registered apprenticeship training programs, maintaining a good safety record, participating in regular and effective safety training for employees and paying the area standard wages and fringe benefits, in all project specifications for construction contracts funded fully or in part by the state.

The Federation supports adoption and rigid enforcement of effective building codes, including the Uniform Plumbing Code, in all Iowa communities. We urge the legislature to require Iowa communities to adopt such codes to protect the safety and the property of its residents.

The Federation supports adequate funding to meet the maintenance and vertical infrastructure replacement needs of state and local governments, including additional funding for the Vertical Infrastructure Fund within the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund.

The Federation supports requiring above average wages and health care as a condition of receiving any economic development assistance. Firms with a record of labor law violations or union busting should be disqualified.

These requirements should apply to all economic development incentives, including property tax abatements, corporate income tax credits, enterprise zones, tax-free low-interest loans, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), infrastructure assistance and training grants, as well as programs such as the Iowa Values Fund and the Community Economic Betterment Account (CEBA).

To determine the effectiveness of any subsidy, credit or tax cut, Iowa should annually, on a firm by firm basis, collect, analyze and publish the data necessary to evaluate whether these programs are working. Such data should include, but not be limited to, the following:

All economic development agreements that provide subsidies to businesses should require repayment if the conditions of the agreement are not met.

Any contracts funded with state dollars and any state-funded development assistance should not be awarded to entities that perform the work at the site outside of the United States.

The Federation supports a world-class education for our children through a fully funded public school system that encompasses early childhood through university education.

Because of budget cuts, education is under unprecedented assault: K-12 education is faced with teacher and support staff reductions and schools are short of textbooks and other education supplies; financial barriers to higher education (universities, colleges, community colleges) are growing due to exploding tuition costs.

The Federation supports a re-write of the school foundation formula to address funding problems and inequities in the K-12 education system. A new school foundation formula should generate enough revenue to provide adequate funding for infrastructure and technology, as well as for salaries for teachers and other school employees. This rewrite should eliminate the problems that are built into the current system, including inequities between both property rich and property poor districts and sales tax rich and sales tax poor districts.

Iowa should continue to encourage school mergers, distance learning and sharing arrangements.

The Federation opposes deregulation or municipalization of the electric utility industry unless there is full protection for utility workers’ jobs and wages and benefits, assurances of affordable, reliable and safe electric service for consumers and adequate protection for the environment.

The Federation supports legislation that would allow Iowa private sector and public sector unions to negotiate “fair share” clauses into collectively bargained labor agreements.

Such a clause would require an employee covered by a union contract, as a condition of employment, to pay a “fair share” fee to cover the union’s representational activities. A “fair share” clause would ensure that all workers covered by and benefiting from the contract would share in the cost of the service provided.

The Federation supports paid family and medical leave benefits for workers who are employed by employers with four or more employees, including the state and its subdivisions.

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

Some workers, who are, for all intents and purposes, employees, are treated as if they are independent contractors. As a result, the employer is not obligated to provide unemployment and Workers’ Compensation for them.

The Federation supports legislation 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 and have no adverse impact upon public or private sector 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.

Contract employers traditionally pay poor wages and benefits, which are not sufficient to raise and support a family. Yet there is no evidence to indicate that privatization results in lower costs. That is because “savings” from lower employee costs simply accrue to the contractor.

In addition, the state may have to provide assistance for such low-income workers, as well as suffer a decrease in tax revenue.

The Federation supports the inclusion of all wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment as mandatory subjects of bargaining.

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 safety and health inspectors to workers. This lack of enforcement personnel allows employers to violate 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 Federation supports the following:

The Federation supports a progressive tax system that is fair, equitable and provides for the legitimate needs of Iowa residents.

A progressive system bases taxes on ability to pay. 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 greater the percentage of that income that is paid in taxes.

Iowa families in lower income brackets pay more, in percentage terms, than do the richest Iowans. It is offensive 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 are the highest – the rich – pay less.

The past several years have been marked by insufficient state revenue due to excessive tax cuts and a sluggish economy. Spending has been slashed, and as a result, significant problems have arisen. For example: schools have cut teachers and support staff, state universities have raised tuition, more Iowans are without health care, unfunded reimbursements to counties and cities have caused cuts at the local level, there are not enough caseworkers to address the needs of abused children, not enough correctional officers to keep prisons secure, not enough inspectors to enforce OSHA laws, not enough deputies to hear Workers' Compensation cases.

A number of changes could be made that would generate the necessary revenue to meet these legitimate needs and at the same time make Iowa taxes more progressive:

The Federation is opposed to tax cuts when there are so many unmet needs. We should, in fact, consider eliminating, or at least temporarily suspending, some of the tax cuts already enacted.

The Federation opposes taxes that treat one source of income differently than another. A dollar of income, no matter what its source, is equal and should be treated equally by the tax system.

Social Security Benefit Tax Cut	The Federation opposes any further tax exemptions for Social Security income. Under the current system a couple pays no tax on Social Security income unless their total income is above $39,000. Under no circumstance is more than 50% of Social Security income subject to income tax. An exemption of all Social Security income would benefit only those seniors with incomes above $39,000 and would cost the Treasury $50 million.
Pension Income	The Federation opposes any further exemption of pension income from the Iowa income tax. Current law exempts the first $12,000 of pension income ($6,000 if single). The benefit would go to upper income people and treats one source of income differently than others.
Capital Gains Tax Cut	The Federation opposes this cut. Benefits would go primarily to upper income people and treats one source of income differently than others.

Other Tax Issues
Tuition Tax Credit	The Federation opposes the use of public dollars in the form of vouchers, tuition tax credits or deductions, which would reduce the funding available to public education.
Inheritance Tax	The Federation opposes cuts in the inheritance tax. The tax has already been eliminated for lineal descendants and ascendants. The tax for those outside of that category should remain, as it is relatively progressive and does not cause an exodus of Iowa residents.
Sales Tax	The Federation opposes raising either statewide or local option sales taxes, unless a portion of the revenue generated is devoted to a system of refundable tax credits that would eliminate the regressiveness of the increase in the sales tax. The Federation supports keeping the sales tax less regressive by exempting essentials, such as food, prescription drugs and utilities, from the sales tax base, and by expanding the sales tax to other goods and services that are currently exempt.
Corporate Tax	The Federation supports combined reporting of corporate income to close corporate tax loopholes, thus making sure that multi-state corporations pay their fair share.
Tax Referenda	The Federation opposes citizen referenda to make state taxing and spending decisions. 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 referenda 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 Federation supports legislation that would allow more Iowans who are unemployed through no fault of their own to receive benefits.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars in Iowa’s unemployment trust fund. Employers continue to contribute at low rates. At the same time, only about half of unemployed Iowans receive benefits. Thousands of individuals who are totally or partially unemployed through no fault of their own are denied unemployment benefits due to technical regulations. Iowa should:

The Federation opposes the use of unemployment trust fund money or the interest generated by the fund for anything other than benefits to unemployed Iowans.

The Federation supports increasing the Iowa minimum wage and indexing it to future inflation.

The current minimum, which was last raised in 1997, is inadequate. It has not kept up with inflation. If the wage had kept pace with inflation since 1968 when it was $1.60 an hour, minimum wage would have been $8.71 an hour in 2004. The current minimum wage leaves a family of three 33 percent below the poverty line.

The Federation supports state legislation to restore the right to overtime pay for those workers who were covered by the FLSA prior to August 23, 2004.

ELECTION REFORM

HUMAN NEEDS

INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS

Social Security Benefit Tax Cut

Pension Income

Capital Gains Tax Cut

The Federation opposes raising either statewide or local option sales taxes, unless a portion of the revenue generated is devoted to a system of refundable tax credits that would eliminate the regressiveness of the increase in the sales tax.

The Federation supports keeping the sales tax less regressive by exempting essentials, such as food, prescription drugs and utilities, from the sales tax base, and by expanding the sales tax to other goods and services that are currently exempt.