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Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
Having not read the entire bill, ( Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act) I am wondering how many others states are looking at this legislation as violating state law.
"We need to make sure that Washington lets Texans run Texas, without the burdens of bureaucracy or union mandates." Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed...
"We need to make sure that Washington lets Texans run Texas, without the burdens of bureaucracy or union mandates." Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Tell me how it is a turn in the right direction?
For the reasons as pointed out by Jack. Collective bargaining takes into account internal comparables (like police) and external comparables (similar sized municipality) to base a contract off of, vs just the whims of the taxpayer of leaders in charge. This gives public safety personnel the chance to fairly negotiate without being threatened with their job.
it sounds like more regulation from "Big Brother"
This would be more of an even playing field, what gets negotiated is up to the negotiating team and the municipality. If a dept is fine with what they have now, they don't have to do anything, however, when leadership positions change, be it elected officials or managers, so can the wages, hours, and working conditions. Some anti-public safety person can come in and say FF's make too much and since they sleep at night, they shouldn't make the same wage as say police etc. Yet, the person probably has no idea of what the job entails, why crews are staying all night, the training etc. Without a contract, such people can come in and just change things on a whim. Yes, it happens in the private sector, but then again most private sector jobs are not the same as public safety.
You mentioned earlier that this would not be like a private union. How so?
Much of the anti-union rhetoric comes from the experiences of a private sector union. You see and read comments of people who worked in a union (or claim to) and make statements like it promotes laziness, union workers don't work as hard, it's seniority driven, there is no incentive to work harder, it is hard to terminate a bad union worker and so forth.
The difference with the public safety sector is that everyone still does the job, a FF with 3 years on is expected to do the same job as the FF with 20 years, that 20 year FF isn't sitting back and saying "I have seniority, I'm not going in". As a union member we still have our job description to follow, which can and does lead to grounds for termination. If part of the job is to climb ladders and one doesn't want to, there isn't much a union can do for the person, except to ensure the hearings are fair and the member is represented. It isn't like the person can transfer to another area of the plant to have a sit down type of job.
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but doesn't the IAFF already negotiate for its members? Are they held to a different standard than the private sector when negotiating?
Negotiations are done by an individual local. While most union FF locals are IAFF, there are some that are not, there are some affiliated with Teamsters, AFSCME, etc. Negotiations are between that local and the municipality which means the IAFF isn't telling people what to negotiate. The IAFF will assist with questions, supply facts and so forth, but doesn't do the negotiations for a local.
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Basically.
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Permalink Reply by Gregory Borg on
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That is why wages are so low.
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No, the IAFF does not negotiate for its locals. The local members do, the IAFF trains them to negotiate.
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As far as I know IAFF local contracts are negotiated by members of that local (firefighters working for that fire department) that are elected by the locals members.
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He is kidding, the IAFF is just about split evenly between members that are Democrats and Republicans
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Please, don't be so contrary Chief. This bill has been in the IAFF legislative line up for over 20 years.
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No one is mandating that you join a union, a group of firefighters can join together and negotiate a contract without belonging to an international union. What the IAFF offers is the training on how to do the job. In Washington we have EMS only Locals.
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Ralph as a "scottish brother" I would add that there is no big brother here. You need to look at how the IAFF is organized and how it works. There is not a more democratic union that I know of and I have been a Teamster, a Steelworker and an IAFF member.
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Permalink Reply by Firewriter on
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With you there Chief!
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Amen!
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