In an effort to please union backers ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is quietly trying to nationalize rules governing every police, fire and first responder union in the nation.
Through the benignly named Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (H.R.413), Reid wants all first responders represented by collective bargaining rules emanating from Washington D.C. Naturally this legislation is being pushed as a matter of “national security.”
Democrats’ union supporters will greatly benefit from nationalized rules for police and fire unions. This plan would replace with federal rules state laws on collective bargaining between state and local governments and their first responder unions and would greatly empower unions to dictate pay scales and benefits on a national level.
While a boon to unions, this law would seriously damage our federalist system by taking away a large measure of local control over police and firefighters unions and lead to higher costs to local governments and taxpayers, costs that neither will be able to affect at the ballot box.
Imagine the loss of control that local governments will face when first responder unions no longer have to deal with local rules and laws but can force a federal one-size-fits-all style rule on all local governments.Local governments will no longer be able to determine pay scales and benefits and will lose control of their own ability to budget in that respect. H.R.413 will also completely remove the ability of voters to have any say in local matters as a top down control from Washington will rule the day where it concerns local police, fire and other first responders’ benefits bargaining.
Additionally when local governments want to fire a policeman or fireman they now do so through local laws and home-based unions. If H.R.413 passes, no local government will be able to fire a cop or fireman without appealing to the federal government and courts, authorities far, far removed from the local area and completely unfamiliar with the needs and interests of that local area.
According to the Public Service Research Council, a union watchdog group based in Vienna, Va., the legislation could even be unconstitutional. In Alden v. Maine on June 23, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court raised serious doubts as to whether Congress had the authority to impose federal labor law on state, and therefore local, government.
Unfortunately there is bipartisan support for this government takeover of first responder collective bargaining. Many think what they are doing is leveling the playing field for all first responders and setting rules that can govern them equally.
i am a volunteer fireman. we are on call 24/7. we are the only fire department around.
that we don’t get paid is a joke. teachers are volunteers, soldiers are volunteers. fighting fires, running into crack houses, cutting folks outta cars on the interstate is dangerous stuff.
unionize now.
What will the next move be nationalization of the police and fire departments totaly? This scares me since I willl be a police officer soon and would not want to have to quit due to the unconstitutionality of it/
In response to Mr. Wimberley, and thank you for your service as a firefighter, here is a brief synopsis of S. 3194, the “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” which Harry Reid wants to attach to the emergency war funding bill:
Directs the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to determine whether a state substantially provides for specified rights and responsibilities for public safety officers, including: (1) granting public safety employees the right to form and join a labor organization which excludes management, supervisory, and confidential employees, and which is, or seeks to be, recognized as the exclusive bargaining agent for such employees; and (2) requiring public safety employers to recognize and agree to bargain with the employees’ labor organization.
Requires the FLRA to issue, in accordance with the public safety employee rights and responsibilities, regulations establishing collective bargaining procedures for public safety employers and employees in states that do not substantially provide for such rights and responsibilities.
Sounds to me like, right to work state or not, unionization of public safety employees can be made mandatory by the federal government. In my opinion, that goes against the 10th Amendment which guarantees the soverignty of states to make their own rules, if not already granted by the Constitution to the federal qovernment.
I work in Texas which is a Right to Work (aka Right to Fire) state. I am a firefighter in a small town (85,000) that refuses to recognize our local union chapter. Our local consists of 135 of the 151 active firefighters employeed by the city. Our dues are 1% of our base pay or about $13 every two weeks, half of that stays with our local, the other half is split between the state (TFA) and national (IAFF) unions.
For that $26 per month I get a $100,000 life insurance policy for my family, legal representation if is job related (yes, people do sue paramedics and firefighters) and a phenomenal polictal action committee on the state and national levels.
I have read HR 413 and there is nothing in the language that would make membership in an IAFF local mandatory. In fact, Section 8 (a) 2 specifically mentions that membership can not be a condition of employment in states that already prohibit such a thing.
The NRTWC would have you believe that I can go to the city and negotiate the terms of my employment directly. That is simply not true. I have to accept the terms that our City Manager offers on a yearly basis and if I don’t then I am invited to look elsewhere for employment. I have no representation at this time. HR 413 and S 3194 will give me that representation without our city going through the cost of converting to a Civil Service agreement. I see a lot of good coming from this legislation and very little bad.
I urge you to talk to your local police and firefighters before you make a decision about this bill.
The AFL-CIO, NEA, SEIU, NAW & I do not know how many more need to exposed for what they really are. They are no more then a group of people pretending to help their members against their employees by blacking mailing the businesses & forcing the members to demonstrate the leaders of the unions end up with a tax hike for themselves & little of nothing for their members which all take the cost of living up to make it all work. But eventually they are driving us into causing the rest of American having higher priced purchases & loosing business for those that cannot afford certain products & so less gets sold & the business after this kind of abuse to the business & their Members, either close up or move out of the country. It is just one way after another.