Bills
| 3.23.22

Should Public Sector Employees Be Guaranteed the Right to Collectively Bargain? (H.R. 3463)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 3463?

(Updated October 4, 2019)

This bill — the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act of 2019 — would guarantee public sector employees the legal right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and safer workplaces by superseding state laws restricting public sector unions. It would also require public employers to recognize their employees’ union and to commit to any agreements in a written contract. Finally, it would give the federal government the authority to intervene on public service workers’ behalf should states fail to meet the standards set forth in this bill. Additional specifics of this bill are outlined below. 

This bill’s broad specifics are:

  • This bill would set a minimum nationwide standard for collective bargaining rights that all states must provide to public sector workers (currently, 20 states don’t provide all state and local public sector workers the ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits). 
  • The nationwide standard would include a requirement that public employers recognize employees’ labor unions that are freely chosen by a majority of the employees voting and negotiate with the unions over wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.
  • The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which administers the Federal Service Labor-Management Statute covering federal employees’ collective bargaining rights, would be charged with determining states’ compliance with the minimum nationwide standard and issuing regulations establishing collective bargaining procedures for employers, labor organizations and public and supervisory employees in states that it determines don’t meet the minimum requirements.
  • In states that fail to meet the minimum nationwide standard, the federal government would be authorized to intervene on public service workers’ behalf and ensure their rights to form a union and negotiate with their employers are protected.

The minimum nationwide standard that this bill would guarantee for public and supervisory employees of state, territorial and local governments comprises the following rights: 

  • To form, join, or assist a union, to bargain collectively, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid (including the filing of joint, class or collective legal claims) or protection.
  • To have their union recognized by their public employer if the union is freely chosen by a majority of employees, to bargain with the employer through the union, and to commit their collective-bargaining agreement to writing.
  • To be free from forced recertification elections of their already-recognized representative and decertification of their chosen representative within one year of an election or the expiration of a valid collective-bargaining agreement.
  • To have a procedure for resolving impasses in collective bargaining culminating in binding arbitration.
  • To authorize employers to deduct fees to the union from their payroll when employees consent to the extent permitted by law.

Under this bill, states would have broad flexibility to write and administer their own labor laws tailored to their workforces’ unique needs, as long as they met this bill’s minimum standards. This bill wouldn’t apply to states that provide public employees with collective bargaining rights that meet or exceed the minimum federal standard. It also wouldn’t override state laws prohibiting strikes by police and emergency personnel.

Argument in favor

The 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which held that public sector employees don’t have to pay their fair share into unions if they’re not members, severely weakened unions. This hurts American workers across the economy (even in non-union jobs). Requiring state governments to allow workers to unionize and negotiate with their unions will help many public servants negotiate for better pay, hours and benefits.

Argument opposed

The Janus decision was properly decided as a First Amendment issue: public sector employees shouldn’t be compelled to pay dues to a union which in turn uses those funds to advocate for political positions (both related and unrelated to their members’ day-to-day jobs) that they vehemently disagree with. Even labor-friendly FDR opposed collective bargaining by public sector unions.

Impact

Public sector employees; public sector employee unionization; public sector employee collective bargaining; public sector employers; states; states as employers; territorial governments; territorial governments as employers; Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA); Federal Service Labor-Management Statute; and Janus v. AFSCME decision.

Cost of H.R. 3463

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) reintroduced this bill from the 115th Congress to protect public sector employees’ rights and ensure their fair treatment in the workplace by establishing public sector employees’ rights to join a union and bargain collectively: 

“This legislation will help teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees who are vital to our American way of life. As many of them struggle just to put food on the table, we must protect their ability to bargain collectively for fair pay and workplace protections. I’m proud to stand with unions and their members, who have historically ensured basic rights such as a minimum wage standard, eight-hour workdays, and employer-sponsored health insurance.”

In the Weekly Democratic Address in late June 2018, Rep. Cartwright criticized the decision: 

“The first responders, corrections officers, police officers, snow plow drivers and firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers — all public service workers, public servants — who go out there every single day for you, for me, for our kids. This 5–4 vote [in ], this decision, undermines their very freedom to negotiate for decent pay and fair workplaces… Forty years of the fabric of American law, torn up. This decision enables free-riding by those who benefit from union agreements but don’t want to pay their fair share… Let me be clear: Labor unions give workers a collective voice to regular people to gain better wages, better health care, and a better future with a secure retirement. Strong public unions built the middle class in our country and shaped the life of every American by negotiating worker rights.”

Opponents of this bill argue that the Court’s decision in Janus was correctly decided on First Amendment grounds. They contend that workers who politically disagree with the union that represents them shouldn’t be required to pay dues to subsidize the union’s speech (of the nearly $1.7 million AFSCME spent on 2016 congressional races, 99.7% went to Democratic candidates). In his majority opinion in , Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito took this view of the matter: 

“Compelling individuals to mouth support for views they find objectionable violates [the First Amendment], and in most contexts, any such effort would be universally condemned. Suppose, for example, that the State of Illinois required all residents to sign a document expressing support for a particular set of positions on controversial public issues — say, the platform of one of the major political parties. No one, we trust, would seriously argue that the First Amendment permits this. Perhaps because such compulsion so plainly violates the Constitution, most of our free speech cases have involved restrictions on what can be said, rather than laws compelling speech. But measures compelling speech are at least as threatening.”

A historically notable opponent of granting public sector unions the power to collectively bargain was Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wrote in 1937:

“All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.”

This bill has 29 Democratic House cosponsors in the 116th Congress. Its Senate companion bill, sponsored by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), has 35 Senate cosponsors, including 34 Democrats and one Independent. It also has the support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

Last Congress, Rep. Cartwright introduced this bill with 47 bipartisan cosponsors (46 Democrats and one Republican) and it didn’t receive a committee vote. The Senate companion bill, sponsored by Sen. Hirono with 34 Senate cosponsors (33 Democrats and one Independent), also didn’t receive a committee vote.


Of Note: Currently, three-fourths of U.S. states allow collective bargaining by public sector employees. However, Southern states have been resistant to granting public sector employees bargaining rights. Three states —  North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia — specifically ban all government employees from unionizing and two (Texas and Georgia) only allow police and firefighters to negotiate contracts together. In a handful of other states, public sector collective bargaining is neither explicitly banned nor explicitly allowed.


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / martin-dm)