Iowa City Election: Labor's House Divided

Iowa City Election: Labor's House Divided (updated)

I've picked up reports of an interesting, somewhat contentious Iowa City Federation of Labor meeting. They're not endorsing candidates this year because of IBEW's adamant and shortsighted insistence on opposition to public power.

Someone had the nerve to offer a resolution for a YES on public power. It was defeated - but narrowly. A move to endorse candidates was defeated by about the same margin.

THEN, there was a motion to send out postcards with Vote NO on public power AND, without endorsing, listing the scores on the labor survey for all four candidates. My card arrived in today's mail with the scores listed as: "Correia, Dobyns, Klein - high score; O'Donnell - did not return questionnaire." I'd been told that Dobyns was wrong on only one question - the Wal-Mart expansion - and Correia and Klein were "wrong" (sic) on public power.

The "labor thing" with public power is nothing more than an elaborate turf war - my least favorite aspect of organized labor, and I'm speaking as a ten year union member.