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Bill Gives Public Workers Clout

Measure Forcing States to Grant Collective-Bargaining Rights Nears Vote in Senate

By KRIS MAHER

The Senate is moving closer to passing legislation that would require states to grant public-safety employees, including police, firefighters and emergency medical workers, the right to collectively bargain over hours and wages.

The bill, known as the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, would mainly affect about 20 states that don't grant collective-bargaining rights statewide for public-safety workers or that prohibit such bargaining. State and municipal associations, as well as business groups, oppose it, saying it will lead to higher labor costs and taxes, at a time of budget deficits.

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Associated Press

Firefighters at a February derailment on Washington, D.C.'s Metro. More public-safety workers nationwide could get collective-bargaining rights.

The bill, backed by at least six Republicans in the Senate, prohibits strikes and leaves to states' discretion whether to engage in collective bargaining in several areas, including health benefits and pensions.

If the legislation passes and states choose not to grant the minimum collective-bargaining rights outlined in the bill, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees labor-management relations for federal employees, would step in and implement collective-bargaining rights for these workers.

The House passed a version of the bill in 2007. If enacted, the legislation would be a significant victory for unions, which are smarting over the failure of Democrats to pass a separate, broader bill that would have made it easier for unions to organize workers, especially in the private sector, where union membership has been in decline for years.

The public-safety bargaining bill was first introduced in the mid-1990s. Union officials say they now have their best shot to pass it, but that time could run out if Democrats don't act soon and go on to lose several Senate seats in November

More public-sector workers belonged to a union than private-sector workers last year for the first time ever. The Senate bill was originally introduced in the current Congress by Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass). In May, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) tried to attach the bill to a $59 billion supplemental disaster-relief and war-spending bill that ultimately passed. Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said that effort failed because of procedural reasons. "It's a possibility…in the next couple of weeks," it could advance as a freestanding bill or an amendment to another bill, he said.

If the bill becomes law, state and municipal associations expect legal challenges, saying the legislation might violate states' constitutional rights.

"If states and localities have chosen not to go in the direction of collective bargaining, that should be their right to do so," said Neil Bomberg, a lobbyist for the National League of Cities. Currently, 15 states don't grant collective-bargaining rights to public-safety workers on a statewide basis, two states, Virginia and North Carolina, prohibit such workers from bargaining, and four states allow collective bargaining for firefighters but not for police.

Mr. Bomberg said the National League of Cities is "neutral" on collective bargaining, but that the bill would be "a huge problem" for cash-strapped municipalities to hire staff or contract with collective-bargaining experts to negotiate with unions.

Police and firefighter unions are the biggest advocates of the legislation. "A year after this law passes most of these executives who are fighting it won't be able to remember what they were scared of," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the 325,000-member National Fraternal Order of Police. He said unions wouldn't be able to negotiate wages and benefits that governments couldn't afford.

Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said certain cities allow firefighters to bargain collectively through local ordinances in states like Tennessee that don't guarantee bargaining rights statewide. "When you actually peel back the onion on this bill it's really not all that frightening," he said. Mr. Schaitberger said the bill would enable about 80,000 of the union's 300,000 members to bargain contracts with public employers for the first time.

Keith Cheatham, vice president of government affairs for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said businesses feared the bill could increase taxes. "State and local governments in Virginia don't want it, and the business sector in Virginia doesn't want it," he said.

Republican Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska called the bill "reasonable." "For several years now, we've seen the benefit of a similar policy in Nebraska which prevents public employees from going on strike while helping to establish reasonable compensation ranges." The other Republican co-sponsors in the Senate are Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.