Legislative Update |
Supporting Public Safety Collective Bargaining Act |
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To read the article, please visit: http://article.nationalreview.com/437053/a-nation-of-trentons/the-editors
To
the Editor: In
“A Nation of Trentons” (June 24, National
Review Online), the editors posit false assumptions about what
the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act would do,
apparently based on the activities of teacher unions and other
(non-public safety) public employee unions. The
Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act simply establishes
a basic framework for states to use to grant first responders
the right to sit down and talk with their employers regarding
wages, hours and safe working conditions. It in no way forces
public employers and state and local governments to accept public
safety personnel offers nor does it allow for public safety employees
to strike if their offers are not met. This legislation
merely allows public safety unions to be recognized and provides
an outlet for the rank-and-file - those officers on the streets
putting their lives at risk each day to protect our communities
– to come to management and sit down and discuss how best to do
their jobs. The
men and women who serve as public safety officers do so because
they have a strong sense of civic duty and they take their duty
to serve and protect very seriously. The heroic response to the
9/11 terrorist attacks provides one of the finest examples of
the work of unionized public safety employees. Every single
New York City police officer, Port Authority police officer and
New York City fire fighter who died that day were union members.
Given the location of your magazine’s editorial offices, the editors
might have done better to call to mind such an example of how
unionized police and fire personnel actually serve and protect
their communities, before smearing them with so broad a brush. Andrea
Mournighan
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