Thursday, July 1, 2010

Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act

"The Senate is moving closer to passing legislation that would require states to grant public-safety employees, including police, firefighters and emergency medical workers, the right to collectively bargain over hours and wages".

Funny they call it a "cooperation act". If it's law, the states have no choice. Guess it's cooperate or else.

Not that we are for or against this bill, just stating the obvious.

Click here for more.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hell he may think this is the volcano that is in Alaska.

CLARK GRISWOLD said...

Its a one year membership for the jelly of the month club.....

Anonymous said...

Well, here is something the FOP can investigate now. If we are not getting paid for holidays (the County keeps describing this non-pay as an unfunded holiday), why does the monthly salary on our paychecks reflect a 10% reduction? Holidays have nothing to do with our salaries. This monthly salary reduction also reduces our contribution to the pension. Check your paystub. Here is the million $ question---Since our montly salary shows a 10% reduction when we don't get paid for an unfunded holiday, will this also affect the calculation of our retirement? Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Maybe we need to take up collections around the county and pay him off like everyone else does. It's the only way your going to get anything like this passed in this state. Even if it does pass... Dekalb will just ignore it like they do so many other laws. They live by the saying "Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"

Anonymous said...

This could be the best things to happen to the line-level officers in DeKalb County (and everywhere else for that matter). A real opportunity to stop 10% pay cuts and working furloughs.

Anonymous said...

This is a very good thing! And it's called a "cooperation act" because it requires governments to work with their public safety employees to reach fair agreements on pay and work conditions. It's not telling the cities, counties and states they have to do whatever the public safety employees insist on. It's saying, "you have to listen to them, work with them, and cooperate with them." What's wrong with that? Look at what we have now!! How may times have the public safety employees been throw under the bus to buy votes for the commissioners, some of which belong in jail for not being able to balance their own check books! As it is now, the commissioners can and do routinely screw us over! If this passes, that will be a thing of the past!

Anonymous said...

Well is this anything different from the last administration?

Anonymous said...

You bet it reflects on your retirement. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. If you can I would run as fast as I could from that county. You'll go broke working there.

Also, just got my social security statement and it reflects on there too....So think of long term and I mean longgggg term.

Anonymous said...

this is a grest thing. collective bargaining has been in florida for a long time and they (fop) negotiates with the county / city every year for new equipment and salary. thats why florida departments pay a lot more than georgia departments. its the same job everywhere, but georgia is sooooooooooooo far behind

Anonymous said...

I hate to say this, but I don't see how this bill will help DKPD officers, you already have a union that is ignored by the BOC.
Unions for government employees usually end up a bad deal for the tax payer and the citizens, the education unions have done more to hurt students education than any single entity in 50 years.
That said, DeKalb government is the poster child of bad employee relations. Something needs to be done but I do not feel the employee unions are the answer.
Aggressive employees who demonstrate for better conditions collectively or individually will be punished one way or the other by the county.
I wish I knew the answer to the problem mates, the BOC only responds to political threats, I would suggest black-mail but that is illegal....

Anonymous said...

That's the point! They won't be able to ignore the union now! They will be forced to actually listen to our concerns!

Anonymous said...

The problem with the last union try, IBPO, was the fact that they wanted to "get along". They have a relatively good relationship with APD and thought DeKalb would be the same. You can't play nice and get along with someone who despises your very existence.

Kliff from IBPO never could grasp that concept.

Anonymous said...

If the county is smart, they'll start trying to get on our good side now by ending these unpaid holidays and bringing back our raises. When they are forced to sit down and negotiate with us in the near future, do they want us to be really angry with a whole lot of demands?

Anonymous said...

"The game is out there...it's either play or get played "

So far we've been played