SEARCH
On the Hill, Fire Fighters Push for Bargaining Bill |
|
 |
|
Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other congressional leaders told more than 1,000 members of the Fire Fighters (IAFF) yesterday that legislation protecting the freedom of firefighters in all states to join unions and bargain for a better life will be approved and signed into law.
Today, IAFF members are on Capitol Hill shoring up support for that bill and other vital working family legislation as part of the union’s 2009 Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C.
In his opening remarks, IAFF President Harold Schaitberger said that it has been 74 years since the National Labor Relations Act—which covers private-sector workers, but not firefighters and other first responders and public employees—became law.
We’re not going to allow our members to wait any longer. We’ve waited long enough. It’s time for passage of our collective bargaining bill. It’s been 74 years that we’ve been waiting on the outside looking in for that federally guaranteed right.
More than 20 states do not fully protect the bargaining rights of firefighters and other first responders. Two states—Virginia and North Carolina—prohibit public safety employees from collectively bargaining. Said Biden:
The Public Safety Cooperation Act, blocked by the last administration, will pass this time and the president will sign it. He will sign it with pride.
The bill would protect the collective bargaining rights of tens of thousands of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and other public safety officers. Last year, the bill passed the House, but Republican senators were able to block Senate consideration. The legislation guarantees first responders:
- The right to join a union.
- The right to have their union recognized by their employer.
- The right to bargain collectively over hours, wages and terms and conditions of employment.
- A fact-finding, mediation or arbitration process for resolving an impasse in negotiations.
- Enforcement of these rights, and of written contracts, through state courts.
Schaitberger also stressed that the IAFF will bring its strength and influence to bear in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act to restore the freedom of workers to join unions and bargain for a better life.
Turning to the economy, Schaitberger said the economic crisis is forcing cities and states to drastically cut budgets, threatening public safety.
The results are in small towns like Greenfield, Ohio, and in the largest cities like New York City, our members are faced with furloughs, layoffs, brownouts, shutting down companies and closing stations. Without an enormous influx of resources, the budgets that provide the very foundation for our nation’s public safety would likely be raided.
Now is not the time to allow the frontline of our nation’s homeland defense to be weakened.
Biden said the Obama administration is committed to getting firefighters the equipment, training and additional staffing they need to do their jobs.
We’ve already increased funding for stations, equipment, better training, more protective clothing….We’re committed to increasing funding for SAFER, which will go directly to fire departments so they can hire more trained firefighters to work by your sides—and this is important—retain the firefighters who are in danger, of being laid off.
Click here to read Biden’s full remarks and here to watch Schaitberger’s and Pelosi’s remarks, as well as those of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also spoke to the delegates.
2 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Senator Harry Reid, Lady Nancy Pelosi are like snakes in the grass, when it comes to the Stimulus/Omnibus spending bill. When he is screeching about banks, AIG, Maldoff esq, insurance all the time eliminating the E-Verify tool, that would start to send the illegal alien invaders home. ITS CALLED—-ATTRITION! The political drama queens worry about the Stimulus/Omnibus spending spree, when they are forcibly appropriating hundreds of billions of dollars to support illegal foreign nationals and their large families?
40 million illegal aliens are squatting in our nation, taking free education, health care and crammed prisons, as assayed by Robert Rector, president of the non-profit Heritage Foundation and a organization (CAPSWEB) Californians for Population Stabilization. Rather than the twelve million reported by pro-illegal alien zealots in the Liberal national press, Bush/ Obama administration and Congress. Clearly, the governing of America has fallen into the hands of corporate elitists who do not give a fig about our sovereignty, the rule of law, our Constitution, or the preservation of American language and culture. Those are the same politicians who cry out about conservation, green power grids, hybrid autos, poverty and the fact that giant agricultural corporations are swallowing small farmers. Taxpayers are the beneficiaries of business welfare.
Yet these lobotomized personages are eager to pass an amnesty plan that would reward 40 million lawbreakers with the most prized possession on this planet: U.S— CITIZENSHIP. At the helm is Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV, Speaker Nancy Pelos (D-NV) who have become subservient to the US. Chamber of Commerce, ACLU and and a bunch of open border radicals, who would destroy our—NATIONAL IDENTITY. These political leaders along with 48 Democrats have polluted the Senate with a paramount corruption, when our country is suffering mass unemployment . They have eradicated E-Verify from the Stimulus/Omnibus bill, a very efficient, very successful application to remove illegal aliens from the workplace. It must be revised and made a—-PROTRACTED—-law, and not subject to political consideration every few years.
Join millions of THE PEOPLE now and start pounding on Washington door at 202-224-3121. To find your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/ To find your Representative: http://www.house.gov/ Leave a comment for the President: 202) 456-1414, To comment: (202) 456-111
I received a letter from my trust office today about how I am going to be facing a reduction of pension benefits. I belong to a union that has Taft Hartley laws that apply to it. My union has always followed the Taft Hartley laws, as well as the burdensome laws that former President Bush applied to the union that make them account for every penny they spend. I have wondered why it is that Wall Street can follow Arther Anderson accounting rules, but my union has a complete and different set of rules and laws it must follow.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Wall Street would have had the same laws applied to it as my union does and made to follow them, that they wouldn’t be where they are today.
When you look at all the laws that apply to my union’s pension plan and the way that my union followed all those laws, it will become clear that the reason my pension plan lost its value is not its fault, but is Wall Streets fault.
I find it appalling that the bail out money that Wall street received wasn’t used to fix pension and 401k plans that they broke, but, instead, was used as a source for multi million dollar bonuses and wages, as well as an expense account that enabled them to take vacations that cost more then what a lot of people make in one year. Then, when Wall Street was confronted with how they spent the money, they said we aren’t going to tell you how we spent the money and you can’t make us.
I think that the money Wall Street received should be used to fix all the damage to the pension and 401k plans that they caused. The bail out money was not meant to be a billion dollar vacation and bonus fund for those that mismanaged our pension and 401k plans. The money was meant as a way to fix the things that Wall Street broke.
When a person drives down the road and hits a car, and it is their fault, they are required by law, to fix it. The same logic should apply to Wall Street. When Wall Street breaks a pension and 401k plan, they should be required to fix it. They shouldn’t be allowed to take our tax dollars and go on a vacation with it and give themselves bonuses that are far above the wages of middle class America. I think Wall Street should be held to the same standard that the rest of us are held too and that means that they should fix the things they break.
When my union meets with the contractors at the bargaining table, they should be concerned with bargaining about things that apply to a living wage and benefits. Not about how they are going to repair the damage the Wall Street has caused to our pension plan.
I find it appalling that Wall Street receives elaborate bonuses and goes on elaborate vacations while I have to take a decrease in my standard of living because of the mistakes that they have made. Especially when I think of the billions of dollars they have received. In the interest of fairness and the true American way, I want Wall Street to fix the damage they have caused. I know they can because they have the bail out money to do it with.