Jun
27
Sack This Act!: Your Safety Is At Stake
I thought the next piece I did about unions would be on the infamous Card Check legislation. But there is a more pressing problem that I need to make sure you are aware of — namely, the “Police and Firefighter Monopoly Bargaining Bill”.
For the past year, this thing has been gathering steam. Its official name is the “Public Employer-Employee Cooperation Act”, which sounds innocuous enough. But, when you start to look at what it really is, it should make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. Essentially, the purpose of the bill is to put every police officer and firefighter in the nation under the control of union bosses. (Can you say “National Police Force”?) It will override state and local laws in 27 states to do it. But, hey, anything for Obama’s Big Labor buddies. Even worse, this is just the start of a plan to place ALL public employees, state and local, under union control!
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Under the provisions of this act, no town, county, or state can “take a pass”. Even if they resist, ultimately they will be forced to hand over their public safety workers to the unions, else the Federal Government will step in. (Sounds like this could be a 10th Amendment issue, too. The Public Service Research Council is pursuing the (un)constitutionality angle.)
Do we really want to give Big Labor the power to tell police and firefighters when & where they can do their jobs? Do we want these public servants to have their careers at the mercy of labor leaders? Should they have to pay mandated union dues, whether or not they want to even join the union? Do you want your local public safety workers to be beholden to a federal union — deciding on jobs, pay, & benefits on a national scale — rather than to your local community and local laws? No, no, no, & NO!
When your police are ordered out on strike, who will defend your home and loved ones?
When union militants set up picket lines around fire stations, who will put out the fires?
We all know the kind of greed, corruption, and strong-arm tactics that typically go hand-in-hand with today’s huge labor unions. Harassment and extortion are Standard Operating Procedure. There are the budget-busting, city-bankrupting pension & labor contracts that the big unions are able to negotiate through sheer force of numbers and the occasional payoff or threat of bodily harm. Then, there are the salaries and perks for the local union bosses themselves that have to be paid. Our states and municipalities are under enough financial burden as it is in today’s economy. (Remember, the powers-that-be have already added more healthcare-related expenses to the states. Cap-n-tax may be on its way, as well.) This would break many of them.
Take the city of Vallejo, CA, as one recent example. It went bankrupt last year, when almost 75% of its budget was spent on satisfying union contracts for police and firefighters! Much of the rest of California is in similar straits, with the state budget facing a multi-billion dollar deficit. But, instead of admitting they are partially to blame, union bosses threatened to strike!
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This bill was introduced in the House as H.R.413 and is now on the Senate docket, too, as S.3194. Reid and Pelosi are both hot to pass it. While Financial Reform has distracted attention from it, the Police and Firefighters Monopoly Bargaining Bill could be up for vote any day now and is sure to be rammed through, just as Obamacare was. In fact, last month they tried attaching it as Amendment 4174 to the Appropriations Bill (H.R. 4899). (Grassroots action stopped it.) Unfortunately, it also has bipartisan support, with some — e.g., Scott Brown (R-MA) — thinking that it will “level the playing field for all first responders and set rules that can govern them equally.” (They really need to think this through better!)
As Mark Mix of the National Right to Work (NRTW) has pointed out,
“[This bill] would create an almost unimaginable number of new ‘bargaining units’ at a cost impossible to estimate. The truth is, in places where Big Labor has control over public employees, union officials guarantee citizens pay more in taxes and get less for their tax money in return. Union bosses insist on more government spending, block service improvements for taxpayers, and push for outrageous demands that no union boss forcefully ‘representing’ workers in a competitive private business would dare to seek.”
This is a major power grab by the unions!
If you don’t want your state and local communities subject to increased financial burdens, possible loss of volunteer police & firefighters, potentially violent strikes and threats of strikes, corruption, coercion, and increased tension between the public and the safety workers that protect them, then help us kill this bill. First, read Warner Todd Huston’s IBD editorial, which gives a great analysis of the bill and its consequences. You can also visit the NRTW web-site for more info, maybe make a donation. Then, contact your representatives in Washington and tell them how much this bill stinks! No monopoly bargaining!
Sack the act!
Tell your friends!
