HR 413, The Public Safety Employer - Employee Cooperation Act: How Will it Impact Your Jurisdiction?

Source: Joseph Adler, HR News, Vol. 75 no. 8, August 2009
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HR 413, The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives in the 111th. Congress ( January 9, 2009) by Representative Dale Kildee (D. Mich.) and Representative John Duncan Jr. (R. Tenn.) and assigned to the Committee on Education and Labor. As of early July 2009, HR 413 had 117 cosponsors. In the previous 110th Congress, the Public Safety Employer-Employee Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 314-97 but stalled in the Senate in a procedural maneuver. If enacted in its current form, the legislation would establish federal government oversight over a major portion of state and local human resource practices, specifically the conduct of labor relations for public safety officers. HR 413 overrides current state and local government laws,
policies and practices, and instead establishes a uniform standard across the country on how governments could approach public safety collective bargaining. Additionally the legislation proposes to expand the jurisdiction of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) by
vesting it with the power to administer the Act and to determine whether existing state and local government bargaining laws meet the threshold set by HR 413.