Iowa’s largest government employee labor union will hold a rally and walk in chains on campus Friday to protest Iowa State administrative actions.

The local division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) charges that ISU “has broken a deal with AFSCME,” said Dona Harris, president of AFSCME/Iowa Local 96. “The administration is trying to force us to comply with rules we haven’t agreed upon, and we’re not going to sit down and take it.”

According to Harris, a typist at ISU’s Center for Agriculture and World Development, the collective bargaining agreement between ISU and AFSCME was violated when university administrators changed rules affecting the established employee grievance process without consulting union representatives.

“The grievance policy is to be collectively bargained from both sides when we renew our contract,” said Rick Terrones, president of AFSCME/Iowa Local 870. “ISU has taken malicious action against our contract by changing the rules. Because of this, AFSCME lacks the proper ability to represent the employees of ISU.”

Harris said the new rules will deny union access to clerical, blue-collar, technical and security employees.

“The new policy means problems aren’t solved at the university level anymore,” Harris said. “Every complaint will now be taken off-campus, which means an increased cost to the process.”

John Anderson, interim director of university relations, said the university denies any wrongdoing in terms of the collective bargaining agreement.

“We believe we’ve adhered to the collective bargaining agreement in all the actions we have taken,” Anderson said.

At present, AFSCME is taking legal action against ISU for breach of contract and is confident that the “rights” of members will be restored, Harris said.

AFSCME has attempted to set up a dialogue with ISU officials but “they refused to discuss it,” Terrones said.

However, Warren Madden, ISU’s vice president for business and finance, said university officials had made “some efforts to sit down with” union officials to negotiate, but “they haven’t wanted to do that.”

“Their only solution is to do what they want to do when they want to do it,” Madden said. “That’s not what the contract allows. We’re asking them to comply with the terms the union negotiated with the state about labor contracts, and they don’t want to do that. They’re not in agreement with our interpretation of the contract.”

There are 2,200 clerical, blue- collar, technical and security ISU employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement. Terrones said many of those employees, ISU students, other union representatives and state officials will be coming to support the protest.

“We hope to send a message to the administration that the union is not going to sit back and allow them to destroy the validity of the contract that we’ve negotiated,” Terrones said. “We’re not going to allow the administration to bust the union by making it impossible for us to do our job.”

The campus walk in chains “will symbolize what the university wants the union to do,” Harris said. It will begin at the AFSCME office on Lincoln Way at noon and will continue through campus until 4:30 p.m. There will be a news conference and rally afterward.