Posted on 11/26/2007 8:39:34 PM PST by FFforFreedom
A conservative fire fighter’s take on the most recent public servant collective bargaining bill. By the way, the IAFF states 87% of union fire fighters are moderate to conservative. This bill has passed the house and is likely to pass the senate very soon. This bill is essentially a mandate that local and state government entities must collectively bargain with public safety employees. This bill will affect many individual taxpayers by increasing taxes and influencing the way fire fighters and police officers are hired. Here is a link to the bill. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.980: Why are the unions pushing this bill forward with the help of their democrat allies in the legislature? Collective bargaining has been a bedrock issue for the unions for many years. It strikes to the heart of their more pure intensions of promoting worker's rights. Some of the other motivations that are less than pure are the IAFF and other unions use of collective bargaining to grow their ranks. Growing the union ranks essentially puts more money into the campaigns and pockets of democrat legislators. Collective bargaining contracts commonly are used to circumvent state laws. The primary state laws at issue are Right to Work laws and Civil Service hiring laws. Another negative is the ability for collective bargaining contracts to be used to attack volunteer departments and restrict career fire fighters from volunteering while off duty. This bill can also be viewed a strategic move by the IAFF towards their goal of becoming a monopoly bargaining entity for their locals. In essence this is a very complicated bill with many underlying ramifications. The ramifications are well understood by the democrats and the union leaders but less understood by republicans and right wing activists. The International Association of Fire Fighters is one of the primary lobbyists for this bill. They claim to represent over eighty percent of the nation's career fire fighters. It's important for people to understand the system of union affiliation and the fact that these unions at all levels are political entities. Most fire department unions around the country work in essentially the same manner. In order to belong to a local it is mandated that you belong to the state association, the IAFF, and the AFL-CIO. It's all or nothing. These local associations are the bargaining entities that negotiate contracts. The AFL-CIO is absolutely and undeniably an extreme left wing organization. They essentially give 100 percent of their PAC funds to democrats. They are key players in setting up 527 educational PACs to attack republican candidates. One need go no further than their web site to understand their left wing extremism. http://www.aflcio.org/ The IAFF at the national level isn't a whole lot better. Harold Schaitberger, president of the IAFF, has used dues money to fund his expenses during the past two presidential elections cycles to act as a campaign manager for Democratic hopefuls such as Kerry and now Dodd. The reason I bring this up is to help you understand my situation and how this will affect others like me. I choose not to belong to my local in order to protect and preserve my political freedom to fund and support the politics I believe in. The way the system currently works, in order to be a part of the collective bargaining unit I must fund left wing political organizations that use dues money to attack republicans and fund left wing politicians and left wing legislation. I, as a Republican, must fund Democrats in order to participate in the act of negotiating or voting on my contract. In our first collective bargaining contract the local actually circumvented state right to work law. They secured sick time from members and non-members for union business in a manner that wasn't in keeping with state law. The over 200 non-members, who were adamantly against having this happen, couldn't even vote on the contract. The IAFF does have it written into their constitution that members may not volunteer as fire fighters in their off duty time. In the fire service we call these fire fighters "Two Hatters." They have actively sought out these fire fighters and excluded them from being a member. Locals along with city governments around the country have written into their contracts that fire fighters who volunteer in their off duty are subject to being fired. This is very prevalent in Connecticut. The Michigan State Association is very active in pushing this. Locals across the nation are following their lead. Again, these fire fighters are excluded from negotiating and voting on their contracts for the sole reason that they volunteer as fire fighters in their off duty. If you read the bill, you'll notice the Right to Work issue and the Volunteer Fire Fighter issue is addressed. What I've never seen directly addressed anywhere is how these contracts are being used by cities to push affirmative action programs. Most large cities in all parts of the country are either utilizing collective bargaining or moving towards it. What many cities are doing is negotiating their way around state civil service legislation in order to hire a more diverse work force. Civil Service State Laws dictate the hiring procedures for many fire departments. They generally use a very objective civil service exam and the addition of points for military vets. Fire departments are forced to interview the resulting top people for positions. Fire departments were getting mostly white males. What happens in many cases is the city gets to bastardize the hiring process to subjectively hire minorities and fire fighters get their pay raise. Although there are many rank and file fire fighters who are not thrilled about this practice, it feeds right into the IAFF's vision of the future. Here is a quote from Harold Schaitberger from a speech he gave to the Democratic Leadership Committee. http://dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=106&subid=122&contentid=252167e "The demographics of our membership a microcosm I believe of what we refer to as the forgotten majority. According to the most recent polling we did in September, 18 percent of our membership is white males. Now, as an aside, I want you to know that we are working very hard, and we are spending a lot of money and time to reverse what is an industry that needs to be further diversified. And that is another discussion for another day that I am pleased to have with you." Another huge aspect of this issue is the will of the IAFF to put the pieces in place so they can exert more control of the negotiating process in order to further their issues. They have tried on numerous occasions to get legislation pushed threw which would allow them to negotiate contracts for the locals. This would effectively allow the larger union to push its will on locals, which are now semi-autonomous. Collective bargaining in itself is not bad. There is absolutely no good reason to make this a federal issue. Local taxpayers and their governments should continue to have some say in how their public servants negotiate their contracts. I've got one amendment that would kill this bill instantly. There should be an amendment to this bill stating that the local bargaining entity could not mandate affiliation to any organization other than the local bargaining entity. It is unethical to force a person to fund political organizations outside their local in order to access the right to negotiate and vote on contracts. If this were implemented the IAFF and the AFL CIO would loose a large chunk of their membership and Democrat campaign coffers would be depleted.
I can’t ever seem to get my posts posted from word with the proper indentions. Sorry folks.
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