eNews: Action Alert – Jan. 30, 2020

Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 04:27pm

Oppose mandated collective bargaining bills

Calls are needed immediately!

HB582 (Guzman) and SB1022 (Boysko) repeal the existing prohibition on collective bargaining by public employees. Both bills create a “Public Employee Relations Board” that would determine bargaining units and provide for certification and decertification elections for bargaining representatives of state and local government employees.

Reasons to oppose these bills:

Efforts to impose collective bargaining and public unionization will increase the cost of government and impose more bureaucracy in local government operations. This means that employee relations will be more adversarial.
Local governments are not like private businesses in the following important ways:
- Budgetary decisions, including budget actions affecting public employee compensation, are done in public with required public notice.
- Budget proposals are available for public review and public comment.
- The people who make the decisions about budgets – the elected officials – are accountable to their residents.
This is the opposite of private businesses, which do not have to disclose compensation decisions and whose board members are not available to employees regarding budgetary and compensation decisions – other than through unions.
Local governments, unlike private businesses, are accountable to taxpayers. Taxpayers can and do approach their local governing bodies about employee compensation – particularly teachers and public safety personnel.
Local governments are required by the Code of Virginia to have approved grievance procedures, to provide certain benefits and provide transparency in their governing processes and procedures.
The state board charged with administering the act would have only three members: One “management” representative, one union representative and one member of the public. There would be no guarantee that local governments would be represented on the board.

Who to contact:

HB582 was reported from the House Appropriations Committee on January 29, so calls to your House members to oppose the bill are needed immediately:

SB1022 will be heard by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, which meets Monday after adjournment. The docket for Monday is not yet posted, but please call members of the committee to oppose the bill:

Talking points:

Efforts to impose collective bargaining and public unionization will increase the cost of government and impose more bureaucracy in local government operations. This means that employee relations will be more adversarial.
The bills would require collective bargaining even if only 30 percent of employees had joined a union. This means that 30 percent of employees can force collective bargaining on the entire organization or component thereof.
Wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment would be subject to collective bargaining.
The union would have to be given up to 30 minutes to address new employees and employees would be required to attend.
Union representatives would have the right to meet with employees during the workday and the right to communicate with employees through the employer’s email system.