On the Hill, Fire Fighters Push for Bargaining Bill
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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.
