It’s Collective Bargaining, Not Collective Begging

August 01, 2007

It was high time the brave men and women who keep America secure were given their due. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill extending full collective bargaining rights to police, firefighters and first responders across the nation. As the AFL-CIO blog reports, nearly 20 states limit our public safety officers’ bargaining rights while two other states – Virginia and North Carolina – don’t even allow them to negotiate at all over hours, wages and terms of employment. In order to effectively put an end to what a police officer described to the Washington Post today as “collective begging,” the initiative now has to go the Senate. Let’s make sure that when the time comes, our elected officials do the right thing for our public safety officers, including the thousands of first responders, police and corrections officers represented by AFSCME. It’s the least we can do for those who risk their lives every day to keep us safe.