Theodore Clark Quoted in Daily Labor Report
“Public Employees Bill to Establish State and Local Bargaining For Public Safety Workers Subject of Hearing”

The Daily Labor Report quoted portions of Ted Clark’s June 5 testimony before the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions in its June 8, 2007 article, “Public Employees Bill to Establish State and Local Bargaining For Public Safety Workers Subject of Hearing.” The subcommittee held hearings on June 5 to discuss the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (H. R. 980), introduced by Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI), which would create minimum federal standards for collective bargaining between state and local public safety employees and their employers.

Ted spoke before the subcommittee on behalf of the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association, and declared that this bill would prevent local governments from creating their own collective bargaining systems that take into account local conditions. Ted said that, “The apparent premise upon which H. R. 980 has been drafted is that there should be one monolithic model for how employment relations for police officers and firefighters should be handled at the state and local level…. [H. R. 980] totally ignores the political and practical policy judgments made by numerous state legislatures concerning what is best for police officers and firefighters in their states.” He went on to say, “In addition to the large number of states with public sector collective bargaining laws covering police officers and/or firefighters, the vast majority of police officers and firefighters are already union members…. These statistics strongly suggest that there is absolutely no compelling need to enact federal legislation for police officers and firefighters at the state and local level.” Not only is such a law not needed, Ted noted, but any such law would likely be unconstitutional. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Supreme Court today would hold that Congress does not have the constitutional authority under the commerce clause to enact H. R. 980 vis-à-vis states and thereby abrogate their Eleventh Amendment immunity [from lawsuits],” he said.