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New bills would bring contracts before Assembly
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by John Buchel
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Legislation has been introduced to bring rejected state employee contracts to a vote before the entire state Assembly.
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, proposed the legislation after a nonpartisan legal advisor told him the Legislature could approve the contracts even though the Joint Committee on Employee Relations had failed to approve them.
Black proposed 15 bills, one for each of the 15 bargaining agreements that reached JCOER out of the original 19.
“The money for these contracts has already been set aside for these contracts,” Black said. “It will not hurt the current budget.”
Black had tried to get similar legislation approved last month, but legislators thought the matter was out of their hands because of specific state statutes, which protect the balance of powers in state government.
“JCOER voted on the contracts and sent them back to the Department of Employee Relations,” Rep. Steve Freese, R-Dodgeville, said at the time. “The contracts are with the DER, so there is nothing to take up at this time.”
After the reinterpretation by the legislative attorney, Black took another shot at getting the Assembly to vote on the contracts by introducing the 15 bills Thursday.
“The bills have been introduced, and now they’ll be referred to committee,” Black said. “We would hope the Republicans will act quickly, but given their attitude, we don’t anticipate that.”
Assembly Speaker Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo, head of the JCOER, had said upon rejecting the contracts last month that he felt he was acting in the best interest of the state and cited the extraordinarily tough budget situation as motivation for the rejection.
“With this action, we are allowing the DER to make fundamental reforms needed to keep in good faith with the taxpayers,” Gard said.
Upon rejection of the contracts, the Wisconsin State Employees Union said it would not participate in further contract negotiations. In late February, the WSEU held a meeting of its local presidents to reconsider that stance but decided to hold its position.
“We will not go back to the table,” said John Congdon, president of the Wisconsin State Employees Union Local 281. “These contracts were negotiated in good faith.”
WSEU executive director Marty Beil said after the JCOER rejection of the contracts that state employees would not return to bargaining with DER.
“From our point of view, it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with collective bargaining,” Congdon said. “Collective bargaining is based on good faith negotiations.”
Congdon said an important part of reform to the way state employee contracts are negotiated and approved would be the concept of binding arbitration.
“Under binding arbitration, if we were to sit down and present the state with ratified contracts, those would be legally binding,” Congdon said.
Black said he has received support from legislators who had promised their constituency to approve the contracts.
“Based on what representatives have said to their constituency, they should support the contracts when they come to a vote before the entire Assembly,” Black said. “It would come down to whether they keep their word or not.”
