A rural Iowa without unions: Only like-minded suck-ups need apply

My wife needs protection.

From me, namely.

I’m not talking about a run-of-the-mill no-contact order from the police.

I could even insist she tie me down — what we typically refer to as “Saturday night” — and lock me in a room, like in an old werewolf movie, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

You see, I have done things.

Things that could potentially come back to hurt my family, not physically, but emotionally and even financially.

I am a small-town newspaper editor.

And after 14 years at a daily newspaper in a bigger city, I dared to come back to my hometown and upend the balance of power.

It’s not that I purposefully set out to ruffle feathers or create hard feelings.

I’m merely just practicing my craft to the best of my ability — by asking tough questions, by reaching across class lines and by refusing to blindly accept the information handed down from on high by our public officials.

For a stint in the early 1920s, each issue of The Jefferson Herald carried these bold words: “Independent — but not neutral.”

By returning to that mission statement, the result is a newspaper unique among papers in small-town rural Iowa. (And I won’t lie: It’s been a lonely journey for me, personally.)

But that’s why my wife, more than ever, needs union protection.

My wife is a teacher in the Greene County Community School District.

She’s not one of those bad teachers — the ones cited by Republican legislators in their crusade to eviscerate public-employee unions — that the taxpayers are stuck with thanks to a union that refuses to budge.

(In reality, it’s actually easier to unload a bad teacher than what we’ve been led to believe.)

No, my wife is an awesome teacher.

She’s one of those that goes to her room in her off-hours and works at home. She’s getting her master’s degree from UNI, not because of the slight bump in salary it promises, but because she wanted to do it for herself, to gain a better understanding of best practices and emerging theories in early childhood education.

But I do honestly fear she could be the victim of retaliation in an Iowa without collective bargaining.
Just because of me.

The Republican-led bills barreling through the Iowa Capitol would end most union protections for everybody from elementary teachers like my wife to snowplow drivers.

Legislators and some superintendents will never acknowledge it — preferring instead to sell us a line about restoring “local control” — but Iowa might actually revert to a time when a female teacher could be fired for being seen in a two-piece swimsuit on a Saturday afternoon.

I don’t think I’m just being paranoid to fear that my wife’s superintendent — whether it’s this one or the next one — could take his (or her) frustrations with the newspaper out on her.

In my three years here, we’ve dropped at least two Freedom of Information Act requests on the Greene County Community School District to turn over information they’d rather we not see.

Sometimes, we “FOIA” a governmental body just to collect information that is rightfully ours to collect as taxpayers.

It’s not always a guarantee that their dirty laundry is going to be splashed across Page 1.

But the current school board president already has gone on record to accuse the newspaper’s reporting of creating a “toxic” environment within our community.

All we’ve done is ask questions.

When a parent with no known history of being a wacko reached out to us about an alleged classroom incident, we felt an obligation to look into it on her behalf.

When the district asked teachers to repay earned income because of a business office accounting error, we thought the community would like to know.

When the district voted to close down the school in Grand Junction, we felt it was only right to visit with folks there to get a sense of what losing their school will mean.

The truth is, my wife and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on how the newspaper covers the school district.

Personally, I’d rather not run some of those anti-school letters to the editor — something we’ve taken flack for — but I’m committed to fostering an open forum.

If we lived and worked in Des Moines, I might not have this dilemma.

But the reality is, small-town politics are alive and well in Jefferson, and there are no two greater institutions in rural Iowa than the school system and the newspaper.

I’ve always considered membership in a union to be a great insurance policy against vindictiveness.

I belonged to a newspaper union in Ohio, and while it also raised my standard of living, I felt most at peace knowing the publisher couldn’t just walk up to me and say, “Leave.”

It’s hard enough to attract new residents as is, let alone professionals, to rural Iowa.

Often, the school district is the only thing that attracts professionals to a town.

And now, as a state, we’re going to be asking them to choose Jefferson over Waukee without any guarantee they won’t be persecuted for a certain political belief or for bad taste in fashion.

My prediction?

The Des Moines suburbs are going to grow like never before.

Contact Us

Jefferson Bee & Herald
Address: 200 N. Wilson St.
Jefferson, IA 50129

Phone:(515) 386-4161