Des Moines Register: A judge has ordered the state to pay about $2 million for failing to uphold a labor contract that a union representing state workers rushed through just before Republican lawmakers changed Iowa’s labor laws. Polk County District Judge Paul Scott wrote in an order Monday that the state should have continued to deduct membership dues from union members’ paychecks under a contract approved by UE Local 893 — Iowa United Professionals in 2017. But the Iowa Department of Administrative Services declined to follow through on that part of the contract after then-Gov. Terry Branstad signed a bill that year banning payroll deduction of dues for unionized state workers.