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House Passes Bill To Give Public Safety Employees Collective Bargaining Rights

July, 02 2010

On July 1, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives amended a supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 4899) to add legislation requiring state and local governments to give collective bargaining rights to public safety employees. The legislation is named the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2010. The bill, which funds the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as a raft of other programs, now moves to conference committee with the Senate to work out differences in the bill.

If passed, the Act would require states to provide for collective bargaining with law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services employees. Several states, including South Carolina, currently do not permit collective bargaining with public employees. The Act would effectively preempt those states’ laws. The Act gives the Federal Labor Relations Authority the power to determine mechanisms and standards for collective bargaining rights for public safety employees if states do not implement such programs on their own. 

Among the provisions of the law are:

• Granting public safety employees the right to join unions that are the sole bargaining agent of the employees;
• Requiring states and local governments to recognize the unions as their public safety employees’ sole bargaining agents and to bargain with the union over wages, hours and working conditions;
• Providing for dispute resolution between state and local governments and unions, to include interest arbitration, in which an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators, decides a contract for the parties when they cannot agree to one;
• Providing for enforcement of the law and labor contracts through a state agency or the state courts;
• Forbidding strikes by employees or lockouts by employers.

The upshot of the legislation for government employers is that their public safety employees would no longer be employees-at-will. It remains to be seen whether the Act will remain in the final version of the supplemental appropriations bill that emerges from the conference committee. State, county and city government officials whose jurisdictions employ law enforcement, firefighters or EMS employees should monitor this legislation and consider its impact on their personnel systems and budgets. If you have questions about how this legislation may impact your organization, please contact your labor counsel or contact us.

 

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