Iowa We Are One Rally – Delayed Liveblog

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Trish Nelson

Iowa We Are One Rally –  Delayed Liveblog

 [editor's note:  DMReg reports 800;  Politics.com 1000 union supporters compared to 120 tea partiers. View a 360 video of the rally here. Hear Braley's speech here]

by Paul Deaton

Four members of Veterans for Peace – Chapter 161 from Johnson County drove to Des Moines for the We Are One rally in support of the Wisconsin state employees. The comparisons with Iowa are many, having to do with what appears to be Governor Branstad's efforts to remove the teeth from Chapter 20 of the Iowa code pertaining to collective bargaining. It was a time for union members and friends of unions to show solidarity by amassing at the state capitol, which we did.


There were speeches, Ken Sagar of the AFL-CIO, Congressmen Bruce Braley and Leonard Boswell, Senate Majority leader Mike Gronstal, workers, union representatives, retirees and a preacher. All with the same message: what is going on in Wisconsin is nothing less than an assault on American working class families.

“Union rights are human rights,” Sagar said. The hundreds of people present echoed him, “union rights are human rights.”  A day of solidarity for citizens from across the state of Iowa.

One of the riders on the way home said, “It boils down to this: without collective bargaining rights workers have nothing.”

Something with which the hundred or so TEA partiers present would disagree, had they stayed long enough at the rally to hear it.

UPDATE: The rally crowd was pretty homogeneously union members and friends. Among the other groups spotted by Blog for Iowa were the Des Moines Catholic Worker House, American Friends Service Committee, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace. Citizens from all parts of Iowa were present.

Ken Sagar invited rally attendees to attend the subcommittee meeting on House Study Bill 117, “An act relating to collective bargaining agreements…” which was happening inside the capitol after the rally.

~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend editor of Blog for Iowa. E-mail Paul Deaton

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1 Response to Iowa We Are One Rally – Delayed Liveblog

  1. Unknown's avatar Anonymous says:
    February 23, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    Interesting to hear Iowa Public Radio talk about the rally as 500 state employees. There were over one thousand collective rights supporters at the rally, maybe closer to two thousand. And certainly not all state employees. Representatives of firefighters, teachers, auto workers, steel workers, communication workers, plus a lot of non-union groups as described in Paul's article. And the tea-party rally was very small and short. It was a privilege to be there. Ed Flaherty

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