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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Sad day for Firefighters across the Nation

UPDATE BELOW THE ORIGINAL POST!

Yesterday saw a potential huge loss to firefighters across the Nation. I tuned into CSpan yesterday to watch the Senate in session debating the Farm Bill. The Republicans and Democrats attached 20 amendments to the bill each. One of the amendments is amendment 3830 which is the Public Safety Officer Employer/Employee Cooperation Act or the Firefighters bill as it was commonly known as among the Senators. The bill largely backed by the IAFF as well as the Fraternal Order of Police and State Troopers would basically give collective bargaining rights to all Public Safety.


Another amendment involved in the Farm Bill is H.R. 3997, as amended, which would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes.

As I watched many of the amendments get discussed and voted down, I thought that the firefighters amendment was good to go. Unfortunately, I believe that was not the case.

This below what I felt I understood of the end of today's session, please do not take this for fact until something official comes out.

It appeared as though the drawn out discussions on the amendments were taxing the Senators and around 7pm a Senator asked for Cloture. Cloture basically means ending debate on the bill and voting. Prior to the vote on the cloture, it seemed as though the Firefighters amendment was withdrawn. Following, Senators spoke out about the fact that cloture was needed but that they were dismayed by the fact that they could not come to agreement on certain important amendments; one of those being the firefighters amendment.

Following that, cloture was voted on and they apparently ended the day. Tomorrow morning, when we felt they would be voting yeah for the Farm Bill with our amendment attached they will instead be voting on the Farm Bill with whichever amendments that had been voted yeah for prior to cloture.

And so we are left with another year without Collective Bargaining. Although I am positive that the IAFF will be back next year with even more support for our Bill.

I want to be clear on one thing, I could be wrong on what I thought I saw in the proceedings. Please watch the IAFF website to see what they have to say about the bill.

I will be in Court all morning and I will add more later in the day including any additions and corrections.

UPDATE:

This is from the IAFF this morning:

Anti-Labor Senators Derail Fire Fighter Bargaining Bill

December 14, 2007 -- With the Senate on the verge of passing the IAFF’s national collective bargaining bill, a small group of hard-line anti-labor senators engaged in a series of parliamentary tactics late last night to block the Senate from acting. With no way to overcome the obstacles, the Senate was forced to postpone action on the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act until after the New Year.

“I am personally outraged that a small group of senators are denying the nation’s fire fighters the basic right to discuss how they do their job,” says IAFF General President Schaitberger. “But this battle is far from over. Ultimately, I promise that this legislation will be signed into law.”

Both Democratic and Republican Senate leadership had agreed to allow the IAFF's collective bargaining bill to be offered as an amendment to the comprehensive Farm bill, which the Senate had to finish before the Christmas break. With time running out in the legislative session, the Farm bill was one of the last legislative vehicles that was a “must” piece of legislation that could carry the proposal, while at the same time making it more difficult for the president to veto.

Prior to beginning debate on the Farm bill, the Senate unanimously agreed that each political party would be allowed to offer up to 20 amendments to the bill on any topic they chose, as long as those amendments were approved by a super-majority of 60 Senators. The two leading sponsors of the IAFF’s bargaining bill — Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) — jointly agreed that the the collective bargaining bill would be offered as a Democratic amendment.

After more than two dozen amendments were debated and voted on, Democrats moved to bring up our amendment. To the surprise of leaders of both parties, anti-labor senators, led by Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), refused to honor the unanimous consent agreement which would allow the Senate to consider the amendment. Additionally, they vowed to engage in parliamentary guerilla tactics to tie the Senate in knots.

Complicating the process, five key Senate supporters of the collective bargaining proposal are spending most of their time in Iowa and New Hampshire as they run for president. DeMint and Enzi knew that the IAFF would have a hard time meeting the 60-vote threshold without Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, McCain and Obama. While the presidential candidates had agreed to return to Washington last night, canceling their scheduled events for a significant portion of today to vote on the amendment this morning, there was no way the Senate leadership on both sides of the aisles could put the presidential campaigns on hold to remain in Washington indefinitely.

With no way to circumvent the parliamentary hurdles that could have dragged on for a couple of days, Gregg and Kennedy were forced to withdraw their amendment.

“Our opponents may have delayed the inevitable outcome, which will be the passage of the Public Employer-Employee Cooperation Act,” Schaitberger says, “but we know that the will of the Congress, the continued support of the Senate leadership and the will of the American People cannot be thwarted for long. We will prevail and we will prevail in this 110th Congress.”

9 comments:

Stephen said...

I just checked the IAFF website, and do not see anything posted yet. Thank you for keeping us posted on the collective bargaining amendment. From the sounds of it, we may have try again next year. Are you able to tell me what the tax relief was for volunteer firefighters? I am a career firefighter that continues to volunteer on the department where I started in the fire service (sort-of...the department just made all of us part-time a few days ago, so I am sure that the change would not affect me now, but I am still interested).

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FireFleitz said...

Actually, both bills passed in the house. As far as the Firefighter bill (collective bargaining) We may see this come up as soon as next session in February. We will keep our fingers crossed.

Look here for more information on Volunteer Tax incentive:

http://www.wktv.com/news/local/11598326.html

http://nvfc.org/index.php?item_id=703&action=show_item&type=news

Anonymous said...

Who were the Senators that voted NO!

FireFleitz said...

It wasn't a case of voting no, because it never came to vote. The way I understand it, certain Senators f'd up the whole deal. Meaning the Farm Bill with the 20 Rep. amendments and 20 dem. amendments were supposed to be pretty cut and dry. Instead they ended up discussing and voting down certain amendments which f'd up the whole bill. Thus dragging it out and deciding to just vote on the Farm Bill and get it over with, without any of the amendments which had not been brought up for vote.

Anonymous said...

All hail IAFF General President Schaitberger. He leads us through the valley of tyranny and opression, lighting the path of rightousness with the purity of his truth. IAFF General President Schaitberger HARUMPH IAFF General President Schaitberger IAFF General President Schaitberger

Anonymous said...

All hail IAFF General President Schaitberger. He leads us through the valley of tyranny and opression, lighting the path of rightousness with the purity of his truth. IAFF General President Schaitberger HARUMPH IAFF General President Schaitberger IAFF General President Schaitberger

Anonymous said...

All hail IAFF General President Schaitberger. He leads us through the valley of tyranny and opression, lighting the path of rightousness with the purity of his truth. IAFF General President Schaitberger HARUMPH IAFF General President Schaitberger IAFF General President Schaitberger

Anonymous said...

All hail the new Orwellian autocracy.

Anonymous said...

We should have our own bell ringers and Collect from the bucket. Maybe hire the rock band Collective Soul. Better yet, we should all buy something from B&G Collectibles. If you want to call somebody use 1-800-COLLECT. I gave last week at my church using the Collection plate. Are you a bill Collector?