{"id":2497,"date":"2011-07-20T22:23:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T03:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=2497"},"modified":"2011-07-20T22:25:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T03:25:42","slug":"issa-bills-hidden-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2011\/07\/20\/issa-bills-hidden-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Issa Bill\u2019s Hidden Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The postal reform bill (H.R. 2309) introduced last month by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a hidden agenda, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress<\/a> (CAP): To eliminate collective bargaining for postal employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill closely follows the strategy of Republican governors who are using budget problems to attack collective bargaining rights and weaken political opponents,\u201d CAP found. \u201cThis strategy ignores alternative methods of closing budget shortfalls and instead insists that public employee pay is the cause of budget gaps and that collective bargaining must go.<\/p>\n

\u201cRep. Issa\u2019s proposed Postal Reform Act isn\u2019t the frontal assault on collective bargaining being pushed by Govs. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich in Ohio but instead closely adheres to the strategy of Michigan\u2019s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to empower \u2018emergency\u2019 managers to unilaterally modify collective bargaining agreements,\u201d CAP concluded. \u201cSuch powers effectively end any real ability for workers to bargain collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CAP analysis points out that \u201cRep. Issa\u2019s bill would create a Solvency Authority that can \u2018after meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative \u2026 reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms or conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.\u2019 That\u2019s virtually identical language to the Michigan law that allows the emergency manager to \u2018after meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative \u2026 reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Michigan law, which passed in March, is already being used to attack collective bargaining rights of Detroit Public School teachers, all of whom were issued layoff notices in April by the Governor-appointed Emergency Manager. The Emergency Manager then immediately moved to renegotiate the union\u2019s contract. \u201cThe law requires him to only \u2018meet and confer\u2019 with representatives from the public unions, not bargain in good faith\u2014which is required for collective bargaining to have any meaning,\u201d said CAP.<\/p>\n

The Michigan law is part of a grand strategy being rolled out by newly elected Republican governors in several states, including Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida. Rep. Issa has praised Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker\u2019s attack on public employee workers in that state.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in a mounting backlash against attacks on working families, voters in Wisconsin are moving closer to recalling six of the state senators who voted for the union busting bill. A win in any three of the six recall elections would change the balance of power in the state senate from Republican to Democrat. Democratic state legislators have promised to repeal the union busting law if they are successful in their recall efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The postal reform bill (H.R. 2309) introduced last month by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a hidden agenda, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP): To eliminate collective bargaining for postal employees. \u201cThe bill closely follows the strategy of Republican governors who are using budget problems to attack collective bargaining rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2501,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions\/2501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}