[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21543-21544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION 
                             APPROPRIATIONS


                           Amendment No. 2044

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I rise this morning to speak to an 
amendment which I believe is the pending business before the Senate, 
and that is the Daschle amendment No. 2044 relating to collective 
bargaining of public safety employees. This is an amendment that has 
been offered to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill which is the pending 
business of the Senate. I understand a cloture vote will be scheduled 
for next Tuesday on this particular amendment.
  I want to speak to this issue for a moment because I think this is an 
unfortunate time to be bringing this amendment forward, especially 
since it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Labor-HHS appropriations 
bill. I regret an effort has been made to inject this rather 
emotionally charged issue into the appropriations bill we are going to 
be asked to vote on early next week.
  I also think the timing is unfortunate. I understand why, at a time 
when all of America is willing to and desirous of expressing its 
appreciation to our firefighters and other rescue workers, especially 
as they have worked day and night, literally, at the site of the World 
Trade Center in New York City, to find ways of recognizing their 
contribution to our country and to the people of New York. I do not 
think this particular amendment is the way to do that because the 
amendment seeks to, for the first time, force the U.S. Government's 
heavy hand into State and local government labor relations with police, 
fire, and a whole host of other workers--first responders, ambulance, 
paramedics, EMTs, and a whole group of other people who, for the first 
time, would be required to comply with Federal procedures regarding 
collective bargaining rather than the traditional approach, which has 
been for the State and local governments to make their own 
determinations as to how to deal with their various employees, 
including fire, police, and other first responders to emergencies.
  The timing is unfortunate, as I say. I think there are many better 
ways for the United States to express its appreciation to these 
employees than to have a very partisan and contentious issue of labor 
relations inserted into the appropriations bill under the guise of 
finding a way to support our police and firefighters. This is not the 
way to support our police and firefighters.
  This is an item that has been on the agenda of some people for a long 
time. To try to insert it into the debate on an appropriations bill at 
this time I think is most unfortunate.
  Let me say parenthetically, there are some wonderful police and fire 
folks in Arizona with whom I have worked over the years. They have been 
tremendously helpful to me. Arizonans went back to New York City to 
help in that effort. There is not anybody who appreciates more the work 
that our police, firefighters, and other first responders do than I.
  As I say, in particular, the folks in the various organizations that 
provide police services in Arizona have helped me in more ways than I 
can tell, but I really do not think this collective bargaining bill, as 
an amendment to the appropriations process, is the way to recognize 
their efforts. Here is why.
  This amendment would require the State and local governments to 
implement collective bargaining for this group of employees, and it is 
not limited to paid employees. Volunteer firemen, for example, would be 
just as subject to this collective bargaining requirement as would the 
employees of the towns' or counties' police or fire department, for 
example, because it applies to either paid or unpaid law enforcement 
officers, firefighters, rescue squads, ambulance crews, as well as 
paramedics, EMTs, rescue workers, ambulance personnel, hazardous 
materials workers, first responders, and individuals providing out-of-
hospital emergency medical care, both on a paid or voluntary basis.
  It mandates many categories of individuals that would now be subject 
to collective bargaining for the first time under Federal rules because 
under this amendment, within 180 days of enactment, the Federal Labor 
Relations Authority must determine whether a State provides the 
following rights--and there is a whole long list: The right to form and 
join a labor organization; to recognize employees' labor organizations; 
commit agreements to writing; bargaining over hours, wages, terms of 
employment, arbitration, enforcement through State courts, and so on.
  This is obviously an arbitrary list of rights that would be imposed 
under the authority of the Federal Government. If the FLRA determines 
that a State does not substantially provide for these rights--and over 
half of the States do not, by the way, they are right-to-work States 
that do not mandate collective bargaining--then the FLRA, under this 
legislation, shall establish collective bargaining procedures for these 
covered individuals. That has to be done within 1 year of the date of 
enactment.
  So the bottom line is it imposes on States, even those which do not 
currently have collective bargaining laws, a new set of Federal 
requirements for collective bargaining for these people, including, as 
I said, even voluntary firemen. It would force this Federal system on 
those States.
  It is not just an unfunded mandate, although there is obviously a 
cost associated with this as well, but it would override all of the 
local and State laws that currently apply. Twenty-one States do not 
currently require this kind of collective bargaining. It would 
literally force upon those governments collective bargaining over these 
public safety officers, who are nonunion members, to accept the union 
as their official bargaining agent.
  This is such a total break from all of the tradition in this country. 
Some States are right-to-work States. Some States are not right-to-work 
States. Some States have options for collective bargaining for local 
jurisdictions, for example, such as my State of Arizona. We have never 
felt it was appropriate to mandate from the Federal Government how each 
of these municipalities and States would conduct their labor relations.
  The bill has a provision that says if you have less than 25 full-time 
employees, then your police department or fire department would not be 
covered. Stop and think about all of the towns and the counties 
throughout our country that may have 26 or 27 or 28 employees. They 
would be covered. For the first time, the heavy hand of the Federal 
Government would come down and tell them what to do.
  It is no wonder that county sheriffs in Arizona and some mayors in 
some relatively small towns have contacted my office and said: Do not 
impose this on us. We are getting along fine. We have great relations 
with our employees, and for the Federal Government to step in is not 
only going to increase our costs but, frankly, create some bad 
relationships. We do not need that. We have enough trouble responding 
to all of the problems that have resulted from September 11 to have to 
deal with this.
  This is not an appropriate response to the events of September 11 for 
us to

[[Page 21544]]

force this on our State and local communities.
  In my own State of Arizona, for example, our law provides that public 
safety employees can present their proposals to their employers but 
does not require as an obligation that collective bargaining be the 
result. This, of course, would require the State agencies and local 
governments to bargain with labor unions on behalf of the public safety 
employees. This is why the sheriffs as well as some police chiefs have 
contacted me and said it interferes with their ability. The Arizona 
sheriffs and police chiefs, the league of cities and towns, all of them 
have expressed their opposition to this legislation.
  I think the problem is in opposing it, there is somehow a notion we 
are therefore against police and firemen. That is what bothers me the 
most. There is a big difference between the Federal Government 
mandating labor policies on our towns and counties on the one hand and 
expressing our support for police and firefighters on the other. We 
have done that in the Senate in resolutions we have passed.
  I hope in many other ways to show support for the police and firemen 
in my State with whom, again, I have had such a great relationship. 
They have helped me, and I hope I have been able to help them. In fact, 
I know I have through several appropriations that we have received to 
help them in fighting drugs, for example. It has been a great 
relationship, and I hope I do not have to prove my loyalty to these 
folks by supporting an amendment which has no place in this bill, which 
is a very political amendment, which creates huge problems with respect 
to federalism and forcing for the first time this new Federal mandate 
on these local communities, at a huge cost.
  By the way, the cost is estimated at $44 million by CBO over the next 
4 years. CBO says it will cost $3 million just to set up the FLRA to 
develop the regulations to determine State compliance and enforce those 
compliances.
  This is simply not the right response to the events of September 11. 
I regret this issue has been infused into the Labor-HHS bill.
  So I say to my friends in the volunteer fire departments in the small 
towns throughout Arizona and even in the larger communities, which of 
course do have these collective bargaining arrangements, for the most 
part, the best way we can respond to the incident of September 11 is to 
keep focused on the job ahead of us, and that is to train up and be 
ready to respond as first responders to any emergency within our local 
communities; to support our local firefighters and police so that in 
the myriad false alarms they are now responding to we provide them the 
resources necessary for them to do their job; to support them in any 
issues they have with respect to the Federal Government in terms of 
getting funding for programs and the like; but not to respond by 
creating a new Federal mandate on every community in our States that 
now they are going to have to be required to engage in collective 
bargaining when that has been a matter of local option in the past.
  It seems to me this is the wrong approach, and I hope we can find 
other ways of supporting our local fire and police than by this 
particular amendment.
  I intend to vote no if the question of cloture comes up. To explain 
that very briefly, the point is: Should we be taking up this amendment 
on this unrelated bill? Sixty Senators will have to say yes before we 
will be permitted to do that next Tuesday. I hope at least 40 Senators 
will say, no, this is not the place to do it, this is not the way for 
us to express our support for fire and police. There are more practical 
ways we could do that given the events of September 11.

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