[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 117 (Friday, July 20, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1580]
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. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 17, 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 980, the 
Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2007. This vital 
legislation will provide police officers, firefighters, and other 
public safety officers with basic collective bargaining rights, without 
undermining state authority or existing state laws--providing modest 
minimum standards to be included in state laws.
  Sadly, some members of this body object to H.R. 980 on the grounds 
that it supposedly ``tramples on state's rights.'' This could not be 
further from the truth. The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation 
Act only requires that states and localities have a bargaining process, 
it does not mandate binding arbitration, it does not allow strikes, and 
local employers still retain the final say in all budgetary decisions. 
Furthermore, most states and localities already meet or exceed the 
bill's minimum requirement of having a process in place that allows 
police, firefighters and others sit down and talk about their jobs with 
their employers. For these reasons, it seems to me that the state's 
rights objections raised by the bill's opponents do not stand up under 
scrutiny.
  Congress has long recognized the benefits of a cooperative working 
relationship between labor and management. Over the years we have 
extended collective bargaining rights to letter carriers, postal 
clerks, public transit employees, and even Congressional employees. It 
is long past time that we allow public safety employees the basic right 
to bargain collectively and raise workplace and public safety issues 
with their employers and in passing H.R. 980 today we will correct this 
wrong.

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