[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 18, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1551-E1552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        PUBLIC SAFETY EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE COOPERATION ACT OF 2007

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                               speech of

                             HON. BILL SALI

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 17, 2007

  Mr. SALI. Madam Speaker, yesterday, the House voted on a measure that 
would require public sector employees at the State and local level to 
set up a system of monopoly bargaining. H.R. 980, the Public Safety 
Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, is well-intended, as are most bills 
that come before this body. Yet its effects would be profoundly 
negative, both on fire and police departments nationwide and on the way 
Congress operates with respect to our most fundamental allegiance, the 
Federal Constitution.
  As we all know, the tenth amendment to the Constitution states, ``The 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States 
respectively, or to the people.'' Yet with H.R. 980, Congress is 
plainly overriding carefully crafted State labor laws with a single 
stroke. This bill dictates to States how they must deal with 
unionization issues, which is a serious abridgement of the role of 
Congress envisioned by our Founders.
  We took an oath here, Madam Speaker--an oath to uphold a Constitution 
that does not give us the power to ride roughshod over States whenever 
it strikes our fancy.
  Moreover, the practical effect of this legislation would be 
disastrous. As the International Chiefs of Police have noted, ``By 
mandating a `one-size fits all' approach to labor-management relations, 
H.R. 980 ignores the fact that every jurisdiction has unique needs and 
therefore requires the freedom to manage its public safety workforce in 
the manner that they have determined to be the most effective.''
  Worse yet, H.R. 980 would give the Federal Labor Relations Board the 
responsibility of overseeing labor-management laws in virtually every 
jurisdiction in the Nation, from municipalities to counties to States.
  Not only is Congress extending its meddling arms into matters 
reserved by the Constitution for the States, but now, some of my 
friends across the aisle want to cut funding for the only Federal 
agency that reviews union

[[Page E1552]]

abuses. As John Fund put it in the Wall Street Journal, ``The new 
Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget 
it wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the 
compliance of unions with federal law.''

  Allow me to quote Mr. Fund at some length:

       In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management 
     Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 
     corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to 
     union members of over $70 million in dues. The House is set 
     to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS 
     budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is 
     due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added 
     $935 million to the Bush administration's budget request for 
     Labor. The only office the Democrats want to cut back is the 
     one engaged in union oversight . . . GOP Rep. John Kline of 
     Minnesota will offer an amendment Thursday to restore $3 
     million of the $11 million planned cutback in OLMS's budget, 
     so its budget would merely be restored to its 2007 level. 
     Whatever sums are spent on union disclosure reports appear to 
     be a good investment. Unions held $22 billion in assets in 
     2005, and you'd think that a modest enforcement budget, 
     representing less than 0.003% of that amount shouldn't be the 
     only target for cuts by budget appropriators.

  Madam Speaker, allowing workers to determine whether or not they wish 
to join unions is consistent with the American principle of personal 
freedom and self-determination. A Federal law concerning public sector 
union membership that would render State laws irrelevant is 
unconstitutional, reckless, and unnecessary. And reducing funding for 
the one Federal agency that pursues notorious union corruption is 
incomprehensible in its own right--but especially coming from a new 
majority that heralds its own allegiance to the highest ethical 
standards.
  These things must not be allowed. These are matters of ``liberty and 
justice for all'' we must not take lightly.

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