|
Colorado Municipal League
Federal
Update: Mandatory Collective Bargaining for
Public Safety Employees
By Sam Mamet, CML Executive Director
Recently, the United States Senate moved one
step closer to scheduling a vote on a
mandatory collective bargaining bill when
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
re-introduced the Public Safety
Employer–Employee Cooperation Act, S. 3194.
He did so under a Senate rule that allows
the bill to come to the floor in as little
as 48 hours after introduction and without
committee review. S. 3194 is identical to S.
1611, which Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH,
introduced last year, and is nearly
identical to H.R. 413, the House version of
the bill.
The U.S. House also seems to be preparing
for a vote on mandatory collective
bargaining legislation sometime this month
with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chair
of the House Education and Labor Committee
and one of the bill’s leading advocates,
saying he expected H.R. 413 to pass Congress
in April. Rep. Diana Degette of Denver is
one of the bill’s 209 co-sponsors.
If and when both chambers adopt identical
bill language, it will be sent to the
president who is expected to sign it. (He
supported the bill when he was a member of
the U.S. Senate.) There will likely be a
court challenge to the legislation as a
violation of the 10th Amendment.
The National League of Cities and the
Colorado Municipal League continue to oppose
this legislation because it would grant the
federal government authority over
fundamental employment decisions
historically reserved to states and local
governments. As you will recall, Gov. Bill
Ritter vetoed similar legislation at the
request of CML and many local officials last
summer, for which we remain deeply
appreciative.
S. 3194 — without consideration for state or
local laws — would:
·
grant every police officer, firefighter, and
emergency medical technician at the state or
local level the right to form and join a
labor union;
·
direct local governments to recognize the
employees’ labor union;
·
require cities and towns to collectively
bargain over hours, wages, and the terms and
conditions of employment other than
pensions;
·
require states and municipal governments to
establish an impasse resolution process;
·
require that state courts enforce the rights
established by this mandatory collective
bargaining bill; and
·
direct every state — even if that state
currently recognizes employee collective
bargaining rights — to conform to federal
regulations around mandatory collective
bargaining within two years of the bill’s
effective date and without regard to state
or local laws.
CML’s position
The League opposes the Public Safety
Employer-Employee Cooperation Act for the
following reasons:
·
The federal government should not play a
role in making decisions about collective
bargaining requirements for states and
localities.
·
The separation between state and federal
authority over collective bargaining was
recognized by the Federal government when it
adopted the National Labor Relations Act of
1934. That act, specifically exempts states
and local governments from coverage.
·
Thirty-five states and the District of
Columbia have some form of collective
bargaining; those states without collective
bargaining rights for public sector
employees do not because of decisions made
by their legislatures and citizens. Various
cities in Colorado already have collective
bargaining arrangements. Other cities have
rejected collective bargaining with local
votes.
We have been contacting the members of the
federal delegation and urging them to vote
“no” as a preemption of local authority.
Note: Information concerning the Public
Safety Employer–Employee Cooperation Act has
been posted to a resource page on the CSFCA
website
here.
Posted
04-22-10 |
